Subscription Retention Begins With Customer Experience Elevation

In the subscription business, subscription retention refers to customer retention. Businesses offering products or services on a recurring basis are profoundly dependent on the customers to sustain the subscriptions for longer periods so they can stream maximum recurring revenue with the options to retain customers for the next periods through re-sells, cross-sells, upgrades, etc.

In the post-COVID world, businesses would increasingly depend on the customers to continue with them rather than driving efforts to acquire customers for every season. In 2021, businesses would be able to retain customers only when they dedicate their investment, efforts, and interests in exploring more about their customers and provide them all they want across the channels and in all the ways and persuade them to not only tap but also stay.

To get a better understanding of the next normal’s crests and curves, this article outlines critically evaluated some of the most recommended data-driven consumer predictions and actionable measures to drive sustainable customer retention with enhanced and personalized customer experience.

Also Read: The Leading Causes of Revenue Leakages—Learn How to Mitigate Disruption in Recurring Revenue Streaming

Transforming Customer Behaviors and Shifting Focuses for Customer Retention

After the pandemic, a vast shift in customer behaviors and preferences has been observed. And, the change is surely not driven by the market itself rather it is the uncertainty towards the fluid times that has not only redesigned the change, it also roots the change to stay there for long.

This is why and this is how this change in customer behaviors has become the precursor to building new arenas for customer strategies. From product development to sales and marketing to customer service, the emergence of these trends is driving the focus towards the inevitable need to provide an elevated customer experience.

In the subscription business, it has more significance than any other business type.

So what this change is and why the companies need to adapt the understanding of these behaviors and experiences?

Pandemic alters the regular behaviors of customers thus it requires special focus to learn the post-COVID impacts on customer behaviors and tailor the marketing and customer strategies, accordingly. Different studies suggest some of these changes in the customer behaviors dictated by various physical, emotional, and psychological factors including uncertainty, fear, needs, etc.

Improved Brand Loyalty
Stockpiling and Amassing Habits
Focus Shifts Towards Value and Essentials Only
Attraction Towards Subscription and Recurring Billing Businesses
Enhanced Customer Services Demand

All of the above-mentioned customer behaviors are customer-centric. Some of them are favorable to the businesses if they would continue to provide a great product with an enhanced customer experience and improved customer experience.

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To do this, businesses need to gear their focuses towards monitoring consumer trends, adapting favorable business models, planning for business continuity, and ensuring retention across the boards including customers, employees, and all the stakeholders.

Also Read: Subscription Management Mastery—How to Get Started with SubscriptionFlow in 2021

Predictions and Actions for Changing Customer Experience Preferences in 2021

With the digital advancement coupled with the need to create a seamless experience, 2020 has already brought a lot of changes in business process management. These efforts were highly centric to infuse convenience that drives customer satisfaction and eventually retain customers. Continuing with the trends in 2020, here are a few predictions for 2021:

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention Will be the Prime Focus

For businesses like SaaS, cloud infrastructure maintenance, subscription retail, subscription box business, rentals, etc. customer satisfaction leads to customer retention is unarguably the prime focus. After the COVID, the trend has become the ultimate business growth goals for subscription businesses.

The subscription-based businesses are striving to turn every single lead into their recurring subscriber who can be turned into a loyal customer. Studies suggest that as many as 62% of businesses are willing to invest in solutions that offer enhanced customer experiences that include solutions like automated recurring billing and AI-enabled subscription management, automated sales and marketing management, proactive customer support, seamless checkout experiences, etc.

Customer Experience Is Going To Be A Major Competitive Advantage

The subscription is not a new concept but it grew manifolds because the subscription business, particularly, SaaS and the subscription video-on-demand platforms have not only adopted the subscription billing model but have also shifted their focuses towards improving customer experience.

As a result, they become able to garner more customers and keep them connected with their subscriptions for years and years.

Brands Ensure Their Visibility At Any Channel Where Their Customers Can Be Found

The digital transformation of life and living after the pandemic pushes the organization to search and go to any channel where they can find their customers. Customers want companies to provide them exactly what they are looking for and at the channel where they are. Social media, email, search engine, calls, in-person interactions, bots, anyway—businesses should keep them prepared to reach out to the customers without interrupting their personal spaces by implementing more solutions available with cognitive technology.

Proactive Customer Communications Boosts Conversion and Prevents Churn

No question is a silly question. Marketers must understand this. Customers are different so do their needs and related queries. The digital shift exposed the gap and insufficiency of the support system to serve customers with different needs. During the COVID, several companies report the loss of customers due to complicated checkouts, inaccessible information, unavailable tech support, etc. Proactive communications in 2021 would bridge the gap with automated customer service and support solutions.

Increasing Use of Big Data to Uncover Valuable Insights Enhances Customer Experience

Companies have already buckled up to invest hugely in big data and AI/ML enabled solutions to explore the cores of their customer base, to reveal the secrets hidden in the structured and unstructured data sets in the fractions of a second, and to provide the personalized customer experiences that would not let the customer leave the platform without being converted.

Also Read: Key Business Processes, Key Resolutions—Gear up to Skyrocket the SaaS Subscription Growth This Year

Add a Little More…Build Customer Experience Strategy Successful in 2021

The above-mentioned predictions are the key areas where instant attention is required in addition to the customer-centric approach to ensure solutions to the problems that ultimately would boost the subscription retentions for a longer period.

From price optimization to billing automation and to removing the frictions from products and all over the business processes, subscription-based customers would demand more personalized resolutions with consistency and credibility in 2021.

Here are a few of the actions identified and recommended by the McKinsey and Company for organizations to respond to customer needs during the pandemic and beyond: