Start, build, and scale your organization in the Recurring Revenue Economy with the most comprehensive product suite in Microsoft Dynamics 365. Bluefort’s lead-to-payment business automation enables recurring revenue SMBs and Enterprises to scale and cut costs.
Increase revenue by 20% with up and cross-selling opportunities, customer portals, eradication of sales leakage, unlocking FSCM Loyalty functionality, and solid revenue management capabilities.
Mitigate overhead by up to 25% and control your cost/revenue ratio through enterprise-wide connectivity, finance and sales process automation, and a lean organisation.
Increase loyalty and reduce churn with self-service customer portals that enable your customers to manage their own subscription plans.
Project payback after 1 year & an NPV of 5 times the investment in 5 years.
Partnered with world leading brands
Finding a comprehensive payment collection solution that ticks all the finance requirements.
Have a question? Click here
Microsoft ISV with core competence in Subscription Management & Recuring Revenue based SMBs and Enterprise businesses.
As the Center of Excellence, with a strong reputation in the Microsoft Cloud Partner Programme and recognition in the Business Applications space, Bluefort offers strong expertise the Microsoft environment and product offering.
Bluefort provides access global expertise in a vast range of business areas, through strong strategic partnerships spanning some of the largest and best Microsoft partners.
Our Enterprise Solution framework highlights our deep expertise in recurring business models, including subscriptions, memberships, utilities, telecommunications, SaaS, and IT services.
Our products are flexible for any needs, from an SMB needing a scalable subscription financial management platform to a global enterprise seeking a Cloud ERP built for recurring and subscription businesses.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 stability for smart SaaS recurring revenue business.
Powerful, customer centric subscription fulfillment for eCommerce and retail.
Information is power. And this is particularly true for the recurring service industry, because workers need the right details to do their job. Without it, a recurring service company has to contend with delays, mistakes, unhappy customers, churn, and job dissatisfaction. These problems have a knock-on effect for the business in both the short and long-term. Fortunately, an operations system that promotes the free flow of information across teams in real time empowers service workers. It streamlines resource allocation and revolutionizes both operations and results. In this article: Why the Lack of Information Makes Service Workers’ Jobs Hard How It Hurts You As a Recurring Service Business What Real-Time Information Flow Brings to Service Workers The Extra Benefits You Get Recurring service workers need accurate instructions on where, when, how, and what they’re supposed to do. The problem is that many recurring services companies don’t give them what they need to delivery a service. So how can they do their job correctly? The short answer is they can’t. And that can have a massive impact on the bottom line of a recurring brand. But providing all the information necessary is a mammoth task if your operations are manual. This article will discuss the problems that come with the lack of free-flowing information. It will analyze how these problems impact your workers and your business. It will then give a good picture of what is needed to turn things around, smoothing out service provision and improving the bottom line for your business. Why the Lack of Information Makes Service Workers’ Jobs Hard Recurring service workers have jobs that require information to be correct and available. This includes things like contracts, terms, and usage. Recurring services companies that use manual processes will have fleets that struggle to deliver consistent, reliable services. In these circumstances, here are the ongoing pain points they contend with on a daily basis: Silos everywhere: When there’s little or no information sync between the financial, sales, customer service, and other teams, the chances of the information going through being correct and timely plummet. Delays aplenty: Thanks to both the manual recording of data and the manual retrieval of information, the data’s delayed, and so is service delivery and decision-making. Bottlenecks in the day: Manually created workflows (especially combined with the delayed and incorrect info) impede service workers' productivity and service quality. This makes bottlenecks that can put them hours or days behind. Mistakes in delivering service: Any outdated data (which can occur at any time with siloed data) leads to costly mistakes in service provision. Resource misallocation: Without reliable information, and with bottlenecks, effective resource allocation becomes impossible. Plunging worker morale: Frustration from manual processes, delays, and lack of access to real-time data, and mistakes in resource allocation can lead to decreased job satisfaction and motivation. All of these throw a monkey wrench into your operations and revenue while both disappointing and infuriating your workers. And these problems will impact your business as a whole as well. How It Hurts You As a Recurring Service Business These problems can spread across anywhere in your recurring service organization. Do any of these impacts sound familiar to you? Higher cost and less incoming revenue: Inefficient operations cut into revenue at any given time because you have to spend more to get results. It also cuts future revenue, because you have continual delays in service onboarding, contract processing, etc. Resource allocation: This is one of the most important challenges in recurring service. You can’t allocate your resources properly when there are delays and data silos that stop information flow. Because manual operations mean phone calls with suppliers. Sales and customer service teams phoning customers putting out fires. Finance checking with sales and customer service about contracts and terms so they can set things up and approve installation. And these scenarios are just for starters. Expensive worker turnover: Employees in burnout or employees who quit are expensive. Either way, it’s most costs for you as you look for replacements who will face the same challenges. Customer dissatisfaction: Customers need consistency in their service quality from installation all the way through the lifetime of your relationship. Without it, customers get unhappy. They rumble. They complain to your customer service department. You’re forced to offer benefits and discounts that you wouldn’t have had to before. Less cash flow: Because inaccurate invoicing, billing discrepancies and delayed payments slows down inbound revenue, you’ll get cash flow issues, and perhaps creditor and supplier issues too. That adds more pressure to workflows to find the money from somewhere else. Churn: There are multiple reasons why you’ll have more churn, and not just because of the problems directly related to your service team. Word of bad service gets out. You competition will notice you’re losing customers. If your base catches wind you’re having service delivery and operations problems, that damages trust in your brand. It also harms your relationships with your customers which drives up customer acquisition and cuts Customer Lifetime Value costs. Given these harms, it’s no wonder that original problem of lack of the free-flow of information poses such a threat. Fortunately, with the right information flow, things can look up, and fast. The solution comes in the form of subscription management platform that analyses and shares data in real time. It brings all the benefits of real-time information, with zero additional effort from you and your workers. In fact, you’ll save them time and resources. What Real-Time Information Flow Brings to Service Workers Subscription management software eliminates data silos so that all the information about your customers, their needs, their contracts and terms, and usage are readily available, anytime, and all the time. It’s accurate and free from manual errors too. This information is available to you, your sales team, customer service, finance, fleet management, and anyone else in your operations who need it. Real-time information flow transforms how service workers operate within recurring service businesses. They get real-time access to important data, which includes usage, changes in contract terms, offerings, and service schedules, preferences, inventory/supplies, etc. This helps them with any decision-making they’ve got along the way. When data flows in real time across the service-related departments, service workers know where they are supposed to go, when, and for what. Management becomes more…manageable because the free-flow of data also gives them bonuses - proactive issue resolution, predictive maintenance, and personalized customer interactions. Workflows are nicer too, because they’re not based on errors or guesses. Which all means…satisfied service workers with a much less stressful day-to-day schedule. And that’s not all… The Extra Benefits You Get Just like the lack of data flow causes knock-on impacts for you and the greater business, so does free-flowing information. Here’s how things turn around for the greatest business and brand beyond your happy service workers: Your customers get an exceptional experience: Everything from fast responses to personalized services right down to the service delivery and invoicing/payments, everything’s customized end-to-end for them. That creates loyalty and cuts churn in general. Siloes are cut down, and communication is better between all teams: Real-time data that is automatically and freely shared means that numbers are more reliable, forecasting more accurate, and reports are great foundations for strategic decisions. All people can collaborate more effectively because no one has to chase or guess anything. Resource allocation is optimized: It won’t just be your service team that loves this free flow of information. When your scheduling is efficient, your maintenance planned, and your resources utilized in the best way, you cut costs and boost efficiency. More revenue growth: With proactive service management and the best billing and payment processes that are automatically run for you by a good solution, revenue grows because you don’t have costly errors. Your teams aren’t throwing out expensive discounts to keep customers with later service on side. You aren’t replacing your burned out service workers. You’re not waiting for payments. And word of mouth works in your favour between customers. Long story short, you get the competitive edge. Conclusion Real time information flow isn’t just a tech upgrade. It’s a necessary investment in the contentment of your service workers, and the future revenue growth of your business. The efficiency and effectiveness of service workers will play a pivotal role in any recurring service business. They just need the tools necessary to their jobs. Going with the right subscription management solution will solve these problems and bring so much more to the table. Curious to see how it will work for you? Book a free Discovery Call with our team today.
Recurring services have an untapped free resource that could help them build lasting customer relationships and drive growth. The resource? Psychology. It gives insights into customer behavior which is the key to understanding how to build trust, communicate with impact, and grasp customer behavior. This article covers multiple strategies a recurring service-offering business can use to leverage psychology to better meet their customer base’s needs while enhancing customer satisfaction, retention, and a competitive edge. In this article: What Links Understanding Customer Behavior to Success Building Trust and Credibility: The Pillars of Customer Relationships Starting a Referral Program Knowing the Customer Understanding what people want and why they do the things they do is the most valuable thing a business can know. This is especially true for recurring services, which rely on long-term relationships and continual customer satisfaction. If you are a business that offers recurring services, you know that building those long-lasting relationships with your customers drives sustained growth. Appreciating why your customers need what they need and make the decisions that they do will be a game changer. In this article, we’ll dip our toes into the pool of consumer psychology, and then have a look at some of the strategies that successful recurring services brands use to boost their customer relationships. What Links Understanding Customer Behavior to Success A successful recurring brand will put consumer behavior front and center. Consumer behavior guides a business to know things like: what products and services they should sell when they should sell them what customers like and dislike how they like to be communicated with In essence, it shows how to make customers happy. 86% of buyers will pay more for a great CX. -Price Waterhouse Coopers 80% of organizations expect to compete based on CX. -Gartner When a recurring service jumps into the world of psychology, they are better equipped to create and tailor offerings to meet the needs and demands of their target market. Creating segments and personas that are based on demographic and psychographic data further helps by personalizing how they service and communicate with the customers. Building Trust and Credibility: The Pillars of Customer Relationships Who wants to give their business to a company that can’t be trusted? Trust is extremely important in the recurring services industry because brands have an ongoing purchase-involving relationship with customers. Trust forms the bedrock of successful customer relationships. When customers feel appreciated, listened to, and told the truth, their trust builds. And that trust is needed to keep building a customer base. Knowing the Customer What steps can a company take to build that trust? Researching and acting on how and why customers do what they do has a positive impact on everything from pricing strategies to leveraging loss aversion to shaping product and service offerings. Here are some of the most popular options: 1. Use FOMO and Social Proof to Drive Conversions Both social proof and Fear of Missing Out can boost conversions and loyalty. Social proof capitalizes on a customer’s likelihood to look at the way others behave to influence their decisions. If a customer is uncertain about your brand or recurring service, they would find the experiences of others useful when making their own decision. It’s why businesses put testimonials on their website and write case studies. It’s also why customers check reviews before they buy things. Similarly, FOMO takes advantage of the fear of missing out on a rare opportunity which may never happen again. It’s an emotional trigger that can inspire a customer to act fast, especially true for the 70% of Millennials who experience it. Everything that falls under these two factors including testimonials, reviews, timers, pop-ups for one-off flash sales, user-generated content, and endorsements on social media boost the confidence of potential customers. They also encourage action. 2. Bring in Gamification for Engagement and Retention Gamification in the User Experience makes things a lot more fun. Competition and achievement tap into the brain’s rewards systems and gives a good hit dopamine to add fun, Their sense of accomplishment encourages engagement and keeps them coming back for more. They’re motivated to stay active, check out the different features you want to highlight, and work for set goals. It’s a win-win situation - you expand your base and Customer Lifetime Value, and your customers associate your brand with fun. 3. Show Reciprocity in the Personalized Experience That old saying “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” is a popular phrase for a good reason. As customers we like to know a business isn’t taking advantage of us. We need to feel appreciated and seen. This is especially important online, where so many financial interactions are faceless. Reciprocity, or giving something in return, is a great way to meet this expectation. There’s so much variety in how you can show reciprocity! There are personalized gestures that can be created for any individual including: discounts loyalty schemes public shout-outs Features on the website surprise gifts or handwritten notes All of them can trigger a feeling of appreciation and uniqueness, which deepens your connection. Customers who feel valued will stay and continue their recurring purchases. They’re also far more likely to tell others about it! 4. Leverage Personalized Email and Marketing Strategies Marketing teams equipped with the customer data and insights they need to drive marketing have a huge advantage. They have the power to build relationships with all their customer segments through personalized messaging for each group and individual customer. And what’s more, they know the best times to deliver those targeted messages, offerings, and campaigns. 76% of customers are more likely to buy from brands that use personalization. Personalization can bring companies up to 40% more revenue. -McKinsey Personalized marketing brings both existing and potential customers content that is compelling, because it’s tailored for their specific situations. Whether it’s to educate, entertain, or to build relationships with the brand, customers will find it useful. And that nurtures relationships over time, driving revenue growth and a better Customer Lifetime Value. These are all impactful strategies that can boost your customer satisfaction and lifetime value. But there’s a slight snag. They will take up time and resources from your teams. Unless you use a solution that does everything for you, freeing up that time and resources. Where Help Comes From There is a comprehensive, automated solution that boosts customer experience by using psychology-focused strategies so that you get all the benefits but need less time and resources diverted from your teams. Imagine one platform that does everything for you. It pulls together all your legacy data, and streamlines all data trapped in silos, sharing it in real-time. That data forms the basis of an agile knowledge bank that knows your customers, their behaviour, their needs, their segments, what your competition is doing, the best pricing models, and insights and reports that is available at any time. On top of that, automation uses all that information for its processed actions. Everything from: Product offerings Coordinating customer feedback and testimonials Individualized pricing and add-on combinations Determining the best offers for each customer Marketing like email funnels designed to guide an individual customer journey Identifying the best times for a FOMO promotion Boost transparency with clear communication about pricing, usage and maintenance, contract terms, etc. Tracking the impact of all these actions And so much more. It leverages psychology for you, making your impact with your customers so much stronger. And it makes your employees so much happier, because they’re not stuck doing repetitive, time-consuming work. Instead, they’re taking these customer insights and creating a more compelling customer experience for new and existing customers. Conclusion Understanding the psychology behind customers and how they interact with brands enables a recurring service provider to drive up engagement, conversion, loyalty, and long-term revenue. It gives a strong advantage over competitors too. Curious to see how fast you could benefit? Book a free Discovery Call with our team today.
Growth is where it’s at. But it can be elusive and hard to hold on to. It can also be expensive. This article explores three small changes that subscription-offering businesses can make to boost their CLV and long-term growth. The strategies bring bonus benefits as well including strengthened customer relationships, cut churn, payment failure prevention, and boosted word-of-mouth marketing. In this article: Offer a Subscription Pause Option Letting Customers Pay the Way They Want Starting a Referral Program In business, it’s not very often that something easy to do has a big impact on something important. And in the subscription industry, it can feel as though everything that’s necessary for growth is a massive drain on time and resources. Marketing campaigns. Product development. Demos. Onboarding. Customer service. Invoicing. So here’s a little good news. Not everything requires months of logistical planning, consultants, and a slush fund. There are three tiny changes you can make that can have a massive impact on your revenue and growth over the long term, strengthening your market position. Let’s get right into it! 1. Offer a Subscription Pause Option A subscription pause option simply allows your subscribers to pause your service without cancelling the subscription. This can be for any reason - they might have other temporary priorities, money might be tight, or they may have to re-evaluate their usage and figure out which add-ons and services work better for them. Subscription companies might feel ambivalent about a pause option because it sounds like a gateway to cancellation. It feels counter intuitive to growth. But it has the opposite effect. You’re far more likely to keep them as long-term customers because it creates trust. Why it Matters in the Subscription Arena: When you give subscribers a pause option, you’re telling them you understand them. That they have differing needs and circumstances. That you would rather have them on board as satisfied customers, over raking in the monthly fee. It also shows that you understand that they don’t want to lose their account and their data - you’re not forcing them to make the impossible choice of “we can’t keep up, so we’ll have to cancel everything.” It’s up to you to define what a pause means and how it works: Limited or no access to the subscription? How long can they pause it for? How often can they pause it? All that is needed is a tunnel – a point of occasional contact that ensures you keep them onside throughout the pause. The pause option boosts customer long-term satisfaction by giving them the flexibility and sense of control that they want. You might take a temporary financial hit, but you cut your churn and enjoy a much stronger relationship with your customers for the long term. And that will pay in dividends. 2. Letting Customers Pay the Way They Want Letting customers pay in the way that works best for them will make them happier and more likely to pay on time, every time. There is no financial benefit to making customers jump through hoops to pay for their subscriptions. There are far too many competitors out there, who have no problem offering customers exactly what they want. And when payments are more time-consuming to make, obstacles get in the way. Then payments are forgotten and fall through the cracks. Then you’re stuck wasting precious time chasing tons of payments. You’ll suffer revenue leakage as well. That gets expensive if you have thousands or hundreds or thousands of subscribers. On the other hand, accommodating preferred payment methods gets logistically difficult. Often you content with multiple billing cycles, currencies, and regulations, stretched around the world. Accommodating preferred payment methods might not look like a tiny change. But with the right tool, making this change is easier than your current payment system currently. Why it Matters in the Subscription Arena It’s important to cater as much as possible to subscription customers because it’s so easy for them to leave and go straight to your competition. In the subscription industry, there’s nothing more important than a good Customer Lifetime Value. And keeping customers with you and paying will contribute to your CLV. Here’s how costly not providing easy payments can be for you: How many hours a week do you spend chasing payments? How much is your teams’ time worth, versus the size of these payments? How much do you lose annually due to payment failures? What’s the churn rate for customers who experience failed payments disruption? What’s the long-term cost over 10 years? The costs of not accommodating preferred payments can be astronomical. And that’s revenue and time loss that could have been invested or put toward innovation, development, growth, etc. 3. Starting a Referral Program We’re all use word-of-mouth. We listen to other people’s opinions. And whether we have good or bad experiences with a subscription, we talk about it. A referral program leverages the power of word-of-mouth by incentivising your subscribers to refer new customers to you in exchange for benefits, rewards, and discounts. With the right benefits, happy subscribers turn into brand advocates. Given how much people trust recommendations from family and friends, that advocacy is like gold dust. 92% of consumers trust personal referrals. And people are 400% more likely to buy when referred. (Nielsen) Referred customers have a 16% higher CLV. (Harvard Business Review) Why it Matters in the Subscription Arena: It’s the ultimate marketing plan that you don’t have to plan or find the right words for. The right referral plans boost customer retention because rewards keep customers on side. Referral programs are extremely important in the subscription space for customer acquisition. Acquisition is often one of the biggest and most expensive challenges that a subscription business has. But when existing customers are brand advocates, they attract new subscribers for you. And those new subscribers are also far more likely to be long-term customers. Why struggle to do something that others can do for you easily? When you leverage the customer base you already have, you broaden your base, and lower customer acquisition costs. There’s nothing set in stone about which benefits your referral program needs to include. But the rewards should be exclusive to the referral plan only. That locks in the incentive. Conclusion Sometimes it’s the little decisions that make all the difference. Whether you decide to offer a pause, broaden payment options, and/or start a simple referring program you have a lot of potential to boost everything from Lifetime Value, retention, and revenue, while cutting significant costs like acquisition and leakage. These subtle adjustments can help you as a subscription business position your brand for long-term revenue and customer base growth, and success. If you’re curious about an all-in-one subscription management software package that implements and automates all these changes for you, why not get in touch? Book a free Discovery Call with our team today.
Information is power. And this is particularly true for the recurring service industry, because workers need the right details to do their job. Without it, a recurring service company has to contend with delays, mistakes, unhappy customers, churn, and job dissatisfaction. These problems have a knock-on effect for the business in both the short and long-term. Fortunately, an operations system that promotes the free flow of information across teams in real time empowers service workers. It streamlines resource allocation and revolutionizes both operations and results. In this article: Why the Lack of Information Makes Service Workers’ Jobs Hard How It Hurts You As a Recurring Service Business What Real-Time Information Flow Brings to Service Workers The Extra Benefits You Get Recurring service workers need accurate instructions on where, when, how, and what they’re supposed to do. The problem is that many recurring services companies don’t give them what they need to delivery a service. So how can they do their job correctly? The short answer is they can’t. And that can have a massive impact on the bottom line of a recurring brand. But providing all the information necessary is a mammoth task if your operations are manual. This article will discuss the problems that come with the lack of free-flowing information. It will analyze how these problems impact your workers and your business. It will then give a good picture of what is needed to turn things around, smoothing out service provision and improving the bottom line for your business. Why the Lack of Information Makes Service Workers’ Jobs Hard Recurring service workers have jobs that require information to be correct and available. This includes things like contracts, terms, and usage. Recurring services companies that use manual processes will have fleets that struggle to deliver consistent, reliable services. In these circumstances, here are the ongoing pain points they contend with on a daily basis: Silos everywhere: When there’s little or no information sync between the financial, sales, customer service, and other teams, the chances of the information going through being correct and timely plummet. Delays aplenty: Thanks to both the manual recording of data and the manual retrieval of information, the data’s delayed, and so is service delivery and decision-making. Bottlenecks in the day: Manually created workflows (especially combined with the delayed and incorrect info) impede service workers' productivity and service quality. This makes bottlenecks that can put them hours or days behind. Mistakes in delivering service: Any outdated data (which can occur at any time with siloed data) leads to costly mistakes in service provision. Resource misallocation: Without reliable information, and with bottlenecks, effective resource allocation becomes impossible. Plunging worker morale: Frustration from manual processes, delays, and lack of access to real-time data, and mistakes in resource allocation can lead to decreased job satisfaction and motivation. All of these throw a monkey wrench into your operations and revenue while both disappointing and infuriating your workers. And these problems will impact your business as a whole as well. How It Hurts You As a Recurring Service Business These problems can spread across anywhere in your recurring service organization. Do any of these impacts sound familiar to you? Higher cost and less incoming revenue: Inefficient operations cut into revenue at any given time because you have to spend more to get results. It also cuts future revenue, because you have continual delays in service onboarding, contract processing, etc. Resource allocation: This is one of the most important challenges in recurring service. You can’t allocate your resources properly when there are delays and data silos that stop information flow. Because manual operations mean phone calls with suppliers. Sales and customer service teams phoning customers putting out fires. Finance checking with sales and customer service about contracts and terms so they can set things up and approve installation. And these scenarios are just for starters. Expensive worker turnover: Employees in burnout or employees who quit are expensive. Either way, it’s most costs for you as you look for replacements who will face the same challenges. Customer dissatisfaction: Customers need consistency in their service quality from installation all the way through the lifetime of your relationship. Without it, customers get unhappy. They rumble. They complain to your customer service department. You’re forced to offer benefits and discounts that you wouldn’t have had to before. Less cash flow: Because inaccurate invoicing, billing discrepancies and delayed payments slows down inbound revenue, you’ll get cash flow issues, and perhaps creditor and supplier issues too. That adds more pressure to workflows to find the money from somewhere else. Churn: There are multiple reasons why you’ll have more churn, and not just because of the problems directly related to your service team. Word of bad service gets out. You competition will notice you’re losing customers. If your base catches wind you’re having service delivery and operations problems, that damages trust in your brand. It also harms your relationships with your customers which drives up customer acquisition and cuts Customer Lifetime Value costs. Given these harms, it’s no wonder that original problem of lack of the free-flow of information poses such a threat. Fortunately, with the right information flow, things can look up, and fast. The solution comes in the form of subscription management platform that analyses and shares data in real time. It brings all the benefits of real-time information, with zero additional effort from you and your workers. In fact, you’ll save them time and resources. What Real-Time Information Flow Brings to Service Workers Subscription management software eliminates data silos so that all the information about your customers, their needs, their contracts and terms, and usage are readily available, anytime, and all the time. It’s accurate and free from manual errors too. This information is available to you, your sales team, customer service, finance, fleet management, and anyone else in your operations who need it. Real-time information flow transforms how service workers operate within recurring service businesses. They get real-time access to important data, which includes usage, changes in contract terms, offerings, and service schedules, preferences, inventory/supplies, etc. This helps them with any decision-making they’ve got along the way. When data flows in real time across the service-related departments, service workers know where they are supposed to go, when, and for what. Management becomes more…manageable because the free-flow of data also gives them bonuses - proactive issue resolution, predictive maintenance, and personalized customer interactions. Workflows are nicer too, because they’re not based on errors or guesses. Which all means…satisfied service workers with a much less stressful day-to-day schedule. And that’s not all… The Extra Benefits You Get Just like the lack of data flow causes knock-on impacts for you and the greater business, so does free-flowing information. Here’s how things turn around for the greatest business and brand beyond your happy service workers: Your customers get an exceptional experience: Everything from fast responses to personalized services right down to the service delivery and invoicing/payments, everything’s customized end-to-end for them. That creates loyalty and cuts churn in general. Siloes are cut down, and communication is better between all teams: Real-time data that is automatically and freely shared means that numbers are more reliable, forecasting more accurate, and reports are great foundations for strategic decisions. All people can collaborate more effectively because no one has to chase or guess anything. Resource allocation is optimized: It won’t just be your service team that loves this free flow of information. When your scheduling is efficient, your maintenance planned, and your resources utilized in the best way, you cut costs and boost efficiency. More revenue growth: With proactive service management and the best billing and payment processes that are automatically run for you by a good solution, revenue grows because you don’t have costly errors. Your teams aren’t throwing out expensive discounts to keep customers with later service on side. You aren’t replacing your burned out service workers. You’re not waiting for payments. And word of mouth works in your favour between customers. Long story short, you get the competitive edge. Conclusion Real time information flow isn’t just a tech upgrade. It’s a necessary investment in the contentment of your service workers, and the future revenue growth of your business. The efficiency and effectiveness of service workers will play a pivotal role in any recurring service business. They just need the tools necessary to their jobs. Going with the right subscription management solution will solve these problems and bring so much more to the table. Curious to see how it will work for you? Book a free Discovery Call with our team today.
Recurring services have an untapped free resource that could help them build lasting customer relationships and drive growth. The resource? Psychology. It gives insights into customer behavior which is the key to understanding how to build trust, communicate with impact, and grasp customer behavior. This article covers multiple strategies a recurring service-offering business can use to leverage psychology to better meet their customer base’s needs while enhancing customer satisfaction, retention, and a competitive edge. In this article: What Links Understanding Customer Behavior to Success Building Trust and Credibility: The Pillars of Customer Relationships Starting a Referral Program Knowing the Customer Understanding what people want and why they do the things they do is the most valuable thing a business can know. This is especially true for recurring services, which rely on long-term relationships and continual customer satisfaction. If you are a business that offers recurring services, you know that building those long-lasting relationships with your customers drives sustained growth. Appreciating why your customers need what they need and make the decisions that they do will be a game changer. In this article, we’ll dip our toes into the pool of consumer psychology, and then have a look at some of the strategies that successful recurring services brands use to boost their customer relationships. What Links Understanding Customer Behavior to Success A successful recurring brand will put consumer behavior front and center. Consumer behavior guides a business to know things like: what products and services they should sell when they should sell them what customers like and dislike how they like to be communicated with In essence, it shows how to make customers happy. 86% of buyers will pay more for a great CX. -Price Waterhouse Coopers 80% of organizations expect to compete based on CX. -Gartner When a recurring service jumps into the world of psychology, they are better equipped to create and tailor offerings to meet the needs and demands of their target market. Creating segments and personas that are based on demographic and psychographic data further helps by personalizing how they service and communicate with the customers. Building Trust and Credibility: The Pillars of Customer Relationships Who wants to give their business to a company that can’t be trusted? Trust is extremely important in the recurring services industry because brands have an ongoing purchase-involving relationship with customers. Trust forms the bedrock of successful customer relationships. When customers feel appreciated, listened to, and told the truth, their trust builds. And that trust is needed to keep building a customer base. Knowing the Customer What steps can a company take to build that trust? Researching and acting on how and why customers do what they do has a positive impact on everything from pricing strategies to leveraging loss aversion to shaping product and service offerings. Here are some of the most popular options: 1. Use FOMO and Social Proof to Drive Conversions Both social proof and Fear of Missing Out can boost conversions and loyalty. Social proof capitalizes on a customer’s likelihood to look at the way others behave to influence their decisions. If a customer is uncertain about your brand or recurring service, they would find the experiences of others useful when making their own decision. It’s why businesses put testimonials on their website and write case studies. It’s also why customers check reviews before they buy things. Similarly, FOMO takes advantage of the fear of missing out on a rare opportunity which may never happen again. It’s an emotional trigger that can inspire a customer to act fast, especially true for the 70% of Millennials who experience it. Everything that falls under these two factors including testimonials, reviews, timers, pop-ups for one-off flash sales, user-generated content, and endorsements on social media boost the confidence of potential customers. They also encourage action. 2. Bring in Gamification for Engagement and Retention Gamification in the User Experience makes things a lot more fun. Competition and achievement tap into the brain’s rewards systems and gives a good hit dopamine to add fun, Their sense of accomplishment encourages engagement and keeps them coming back for more. They’re motivated to stay active, check out the different features you want to highlight, and work for set goals. It’s a win-win situation - you expand your base and Customer Lifetime Value, and your customers associate your brand with fun. 3. Show Reciprocity in the Personalized Experience That old saying “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” is a popular phrase for a good reason. As customers we like to know a business isn’t taking advantage of us. We need to feel appreciated and seen. This is especially important online, where so many financial interactions are faceless. Reciprocity, or giving something in return, is a great way to meet this expectation. There’s so much variety in how you can show reciprocity! There are personalized gestures that can be created for any individual including: discounts loyalty schemes public shout-outs Features on the website surprise gifts or handwritten notes All of them can trigger a feeling of appreciation and uniqueness, which deepens your connection. Customers who feel valued will stay and continue their recurring purchases. They’re also far more likely to tell others about it! 4. Leverage Personalized Email and Marketing Strategies Marketing teams equipped with the customer data and insights they need to drive marketing have a huge advantage. They have the power to build relationships with all their customer segments through personalized messaging for each group and individual customer. And what’s more, they know the best times to deliver those targeted messages, offerings, and campaigns. 76% of customers are more likely to buy from brands that use personalization. Personalization can bring companies up to 40% more revenue. -McKinsey Personalized marketing brings both existing and potential customers content that is compelling, because it’s tailored for their specific situations. Whether it’s to educate, entertain, or to build relationships with the brand, customers will find it useful. And that nurtures relationships over time, driving revenue growth and a better Customer Lifetime Value. These are all impactful strategies that can boost your customer satisfaction and lifetime value. But there’s a slight snag. They will take up time and resources from your teams. Unless you use a solution that does everything for you, freeing up that time and resources. Where Help Comes From There is a comprehensive, automated solution that boosts customer experience by using psychology-focused strategies so that you get all the benefits but need less time and resources diverted from your teams. Imagine one platform that does everything for you. It pulls together all your legacy data, and streamlines all data trapped in silos, sharing it in real-time. That data forms the basis of an agile knowledge bank that knows your customers, their behaviour, their needs, their segments, what your competition is doing, the best pricing models, and insights and reports that is available at any time. On top of that, automation uses all that information for its processed actions. Everything from: Product offerings Coordinating customer feedback and testimonials Individualized pricing and add-on combinations Determining the best offers for each customer Marketing like email funnels designed to guide an individual customer journey Identifying the best times for a FOMO promotion Boost transparency with clear communication about pricing, usage and maintenance, contract terms, etc. Tracking the impact of all these actions And so much more. It leverages psychology for you, making your impact with your customers so much stronger. And it makes your employees so much happier, because they’re not stuck doing repetitive, time-consuming work. Instead, they’re taking these customer insights and creating a more compelling customer experience for new and existing customers. Conclusion Understanding the psychology behind customers and how they interact with brands enables a recurring service provider to drive up engagement, conversion, loyalty, and long-term revenue. It gives a strong advantage over competitors too. Curious to see how fast you could benefit? Book a free Discovery Call with our team today.
Growth is where it’s at. But it can be elusive and hard to hold on to. It can also be expensive. This article explores three small changes that subscription-offering businesses can make to boost their CLV and long-term growth. The strategies bring bonus benefits as well including strengthened customer relationships, cut churn, payment failure prevention, and boosted word-of-mouth marketing. In this article: Offer a Subscription Pause Option Letting Customers Pay the Way They Want Starting a Referral Program In business, it’s not very often that something easy to do has a big impact on something important. And in the subscription industry, it can feel as though everything that’s necessary for growth is a massive drain on time and resources. Marketing campaigns. Product development. Demos. Onboarding. Customer service. Invoicing. So here’s a little good news. Not everything requires months of logistical planning, consultants, and a slush fund. There are three tiny changes you can make that can have a massive impact on your revenue and growth over the long term, strengthening your market position. Let’s get right into it! 1. Offer a Subscription Pause Option A subscription pause option simply allows your subscribers to pause your service without cancelling the subscription. This can be for any reason - they might have other temporary priorities, money might be tight, or they may have to re-evaluate their usage and figure out which add-ons and services work better for them. Subscription companies might feel ambivalent about a pause option because it sounds like a gateway to cancellation. It feels counter intuitive to growth. But it has the opposite effect. You’re far more likely to keep them as long-term customers because it creates trust. Why it Matters in the Subscription Arena: When you give subscribers a pause option, you’re telling them you understand them. That they have differing needs and circumstances. That you would rather have them on board as satisfied customers, over raking in the monthly fee. It also shows that you understand that they don’t want to lose their account and their data - you’re not forcing them to make the impossible choice of “we can’t keep up, so we’ll have to cancel everything.” It’s up to you to define what a pause means and how it works: Limited or no access to the subscription? How long can they pause it for? How often can they pause it? All that is needed is a tunnel – a point of occasional contact that ensures you keep them onside throughout the pause. The pause option boosts customer long-term satisfaction by giving them the flexibility and sense of control that they want. You might take a temporary financial hit, but you cut your churn and enjoy a much stronger relationship with your customers for the long term. And that will pay in dividends. 2. Letting Customers Pay the Way They Want Letting customers pay in the way that works best for them will make them happier and more likely to pay on time, every time. There is no financial benefit to making customers jump through hoops to pay for their subscriptions. There are far too many competitors out there, who have no problem offering customers exactly what they want. And when payments are more time-consuming to make, obstacles get in the way. Then payments are forgotten and fall through the cracks. Then you’re stuck wasting precious time chasing tons of payments. You’ll suffer revenue leakage as well. That gets expensive if you have thousands or hundreds or thousands of subscribers. On the other hand, accommodating preferred payment methods gets logistically difficult. Often you content with multiple billing cycles, currencies, and regulations, stretched around the world. Accommodating preferred payment methods might not look like a tiny change. But with the right tool, making this change is easier than your current payment system currently. Why it Matters in the Subscription Arena It’s important to cater as much as possible to subscription customers because it’s so easy for them to leave and go straight to your competition. In the subscription industry, there’s nothing more important than a good Customer Lifetime Value. And keeping customers with you and paying will contribute to your CLV. Here’s how costly not providing easy payments can be for you: How many hours a week do you spend chasing payments? How much is your teams’ time worth, versus the size of these payments? How much do you lose annually due to payment failures? What’s the churn rate for customers who experience failed payments disruption? What’s the long-term cost over 10 years? The costs of not accommodating preferred payments can be astronomical. And that’s revenue and time loss that could have been invested or put toward innovation, development, growth, etc. 3. Starting a Referral Program We’re all use word-of-mouth. We listen to other people’s opinions. And whether we have good or bad experiences with a subscription, we talk about it. A referral program leverages the power of word-of-mouth by incentivising your subscribers to refer new customers to you in exchange for benefits, rewards, and discounts. With the right benefits, happy subscribers turn into brand advocates. Given how much people trust recommendations from family and friends, that advocacy is like gold dust. 92% of consumers trust personal referrals. And people are 400% more likely to buy when referred. (Nielsen) Referred customers have a 16% higher CLV. (Harvard Business Review) Why it Matters in the Subscription Arena: It’s the ultimate marketing plan that you don’t have to plan or find the right words for. The right referral plans boost customer retention because rewards keep customers on side. Referral programs are extremely important in the subscription space for customer acquisition. Acquisition is often one of the biggest and most expensive challenges that a subscription business has. But when existing customers are brand advocates, they attract new subscribers for you. And those new subscribers are also far more likely to be long-term customers. Why struggle to do something that others can do for you easily? When you leverage the customer base you already have, you broaden your base, and lower customer acquisition costs. There’s nothing set in stone about which benefits your referral program needs to include. But the rewards should be exclusive to the referral plan only. That locks in the incentive. Conclusion Sometimes it’s the little decisions that make all the difference. Whether you decide to offer a pause, broaden payment options, and/or start a simple referring program you have a lot of potential to boost everything from Lifetime Value, retention, and revenue, while cutting significant costs like acquisition and leakage. These subtle adjustments can help you as a subscription business position your brand for long-term revenue and customer base growth, and success. If you’re curious about an all-in-one subscription management software package that implements and automates all these changes for you, why not get in touch? Book a free Discovery Call with our team today.
Bluefort is the Microsoft Cloud Partner and Authority with core competence in Subscription Management and Recurring Revenue automation for SMBs and Enterprise Business.
