We know how valuable subscription retention is, so we’ve pulled together some simple, effective strategies to help you keep your subscription customers engaged!
- Timely Notifications
- Strategic payment retries
- Tactical Cycle Based Discounts
- Retain Customers with ProsperStack
Timely Notifications
Timely communication can make all the difference when it comes to reducing churn due to failed payments. We recommend setting up our Submarine Flow triggers and linking them with your email or SMS platform (eg. Klaviyo) to notify customers at important stages in the subscription cycle:
- Upcoming Order Notification: Let customers know a charge is coming in a few days time. This gives customers plenty of notice to update payment information or make changes to their subscription. We recommend including the date and total price in the email template with a link to their account.
- Payment Failed Notifications: Notify customers the moment a payment fails so they can take immediate action before the next retry.
You can learn more about setting up these flows here: Using Klaviyo with Submarine
Strategic payment retries
A strategic payment retry policy can make a big difference in keeping active subscribers. Instead of retrying payments randomly, use data to determine the best times and reasons for retries. This might mean trying again at a different time of day, taking into account where the majority of your customers are, or adjusting based on common issues. A well-designed retry policy recovers more payments and keeps customers happy without even noticing the hiccup! Please reach out if you are not sure what your current payment retry policy is, or if you’d like us to adjust this for you!
Tactical Cycle Based Discounts
Analyse your data. How do you do this? Use the ‘Subscription Order Updated’ flow to track the actions customers take at different points in their subscription lifecycle. For example, you can look at the diff (the changes made) to see what the customer has updated — e.g. skipped order #05 - and then send this to Klaviyo for reporting. If you’re not using Klaviyo, you can export this data into another reporting tool to uncover the same insights. If subscription customers are dropping off around orders 4, 5, or 6, consider offering a Subscription Plan Group discount that automatically applies to that specific subscription cycle(s). This gives customers a reason to stick around while making them feel valued. Plus, customers who feel they’re getting extra value are less likely to cancel when life gets busy or budgets tighten!
You can also offer other incentives to your subscription customers directly through the Submarine UI. This might include:
- Adding a discount code for a long-term subscription customer
- Adding a free one-off product to the customer's next order
- Connect your loyalty platform to Submarine to automatically add accrued points to their upcoming payment.
Need help configuring these? Email us at help@getsubmarine.com!
Retain Customers with ProsperStack
Sometimes churn doesn’t come from failed payments, but from customers actively choosing to cancel. That’s where ProsperStack comes in. ProsperStack is an all in one retention platform that helps you keep more subscribers by turning cancellations into opportunities for recovery.
With ProsperStack, you can:
- Build customised cancellation surveys to understand why customers are leaving.
- Present tailored offers such as discounts, subscription pauses, or skipped orders.
- Automatically update Submarine subscriptions through the integration - ProsperStack can skip an upcoming order, pause a subscription, or attach a discount code without manual intervention.
Reach out to the ProsperStack team at sales@prosperstack.com and let them know you’re using Submarine. You can also check out our ProsperStack x Submarine guide for more details.
