Prevent your Customers from Cancelling Service
If there are any debits made to my credit card I get an email alert largely to reduce fraud and suspicious activity.
Yesterday I saw a $149 payment being debited. I immediately called the bank and asked who the merchant was. I was able to identify them as a subscription app service, however I had only signed up for the free plan, certainly not the $149 a month one. So I emailed the company and sure enough they rebated by card.
Before being allowed to cancel the company asked me for the reason why I was leaving. I indicated that I was not interested in their Premium plan. After that, they unsubscribed me.
I wondered if they had done enough to entice me to stay? If I would have been persuaded if they had in some way spiced up their offer?
It got me thinking about my own online business and what I could do to prevent people from leaving my subscription membership plans. I thought that this could be a decent revenue earner once I could keep my customers happy. I certainly do not want my members cancelling service.
So I have come up with 4 strategies to keep your customers from leaving you.
Strategy #1: Persuade Customers to stay just as they are Cancelling
I am sure this is a tactic that many of you have already experienced. You have decided to cancel your subscription but before you can, you get a pop up offering you an incredible discount, if you stay a further year. Or, they give you free access to their Premium program at no additional cost for a period.
These types of juicy incentives are geared towards making you reconsider leaving. They assume that you liked some feature of the service that originally caused you to sign up. It’s also much cheaper to provide incentives to existing customers to stay rather than having to market to new customers.
Be careful though of those people that threaten to leave only because they want to access the discount offers.
Strategy #2: Use your Analytics to Anticipate and Stop Cancellations.
Your Google Analytics and different social media dashboards with metrics provide invaluable information on the behaviour of your customers. Once you are monitoring this data you will be better able to make strategic business decisions on campaigns, budgets, investments etc. that will preempt cancellations.
If for instance you note that an active customer, communicating daily, is no longer active. Or there has been a spike in abandoned carts. Or the bounce rate has jumped up. Or a regular client has been repeatedly raising service related complaints. This should send off alarm bells and prompt some form of client outreach.
These outreach methods could include the platform having an open forum between customers and senior management, channels for receipt of service improvement recommendations, boosting the sharing of positive stories, increase customer support and speeding the time it takes to resolve issues.
Strategy #3: Address Unanticipated Events
None of us could have ever anticipated the devastating impact that Covid has had. I had booked some airline tickets for a family trip and due to health concerns and borders being closed it certainly was not possible to go. The airline refunded our tickets and my frequent flyer points.
It is completely understandable when customers want to cancel in this type of instance, as with my flight. As a company you must have the necessary safeguards in place to do so.
For instance, ensuring that you have appropriate insurance coverage or cash flow on hand to make rebates. The worst thing is when people want their money back for non-delivery of service and you can’t give it to them. That is pressure! For extra cover make sure that you have very clearly communicated cancellation policies.
Strategy #4 Reward customer loyalty
Your Clients are constantly being targeted by competitors. So it is important to keep clients happy and to offer them the highest levels of service possible. By fostering loyalty you will reduce turnover and improve satisfaction
But customers today don’t just want to be satisfied they want to be delighted. So they expect businesses to go the extra mile.
You company can go the extra mile and offer a personal touch by having emails addressed in your name going to your inbox. Or by rewarding customers with special awards or badges of honour. Or by offfering them benefits that are unparalleled by competitors. This demonstrates to customers that you are genuinely interested in how they feel and want to ensure that they are appreciated. This builds trust and has the knock on effect of making them advocates or ambassadors for your business. The net effect is that customers become fiercely loyal and will go the extra mile to protect the brand.
I hope you can employ these four strategies in your efforts to retain customers. Please like and let me know what other strategies you may have previously utilized or are aware of. Looking forward to hearing form you.
Hugh
Invest in Yourself it Pays the Highest Dividends
Recent Comments
46
I always make an alarm in my phone to remind me to cancel because I do not want to be charged for a service that I have no need for.
Consequently, I experienced an email whenever unsubscribe from a program or service. It is either promising me more or asking me to give reasons regarding my decision.
We can probably do something like that to our customers to prevent them from leaving or even enticing them to return.
A compassionate email perhaps with some goodies in it could sway some from leaving. That would be an idea to implement.
This is a common enough issue Hugh. "Sign up for a free trial and after a month we will debit your account...."
After a couple of days we have forgotten about it, until you try getting funds from an ATM, which then flashes a message across the screen, that the amount exceeds funds available.
Some good tips above Hugh, but at the end of the day everyone has their own agenda.
Michael.
The system really should only roll over to another month if you 'opt' to continue not if you do 'nothing'. It is what it is but a little seedy in my humble view. Thanks for sharing Mike!
Yep agree Hugh,
Often in the fine print down the bottom of the page also. Not everyone looks there.
Michael.
Yeah that's my sentiment Terry. The thing is that you can have a small debit coming out which is hardly noticeable but if it stays there for a while it can rack you up a pretty little penny.
So true Hugh it is such a competitive world out there at the moment, especially online. If we can do everything in our power to make our customers the heroes of the story the better we are equipped to retain them and as they say in marketing circles it is easier to retain customers than recruit new ones.
Some excellent advice and tips in your post.
There are some customers that come with the intent to profit in some way. These are the really difficult ones because you have to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are well intended. Thanks so much for dropping in Alex.
You have hit the nail right on the head, Alex, so much competition out there even if people may have heard that the customer is the hero and focus of our entrepreneurial journeys.
Let's indeed work hard to keep them coming and better yet being so satisfied so as to promote us even- that is success 😊
I had the same thing happen. I was charged for a premium program that I didn't know that I had signed up for. The company refunded my money with NO complaint, and they didn't try to upsell me. Because of that, I feel MUCH MORE loyal to the company. (I am still using their products; I just didn't want to be on the monthly subscription plan.) This customer service makes me much MORE likely to consider working with them in the future. I hate when the customer service tries too hard to keep me when I want to go. It seems scammy when I never meant to sign up to begin with. If I had been a longtime customer, I think some questioning and an offer would be good, but when the company tries to hang on like a bulldog with a steak...that is annoying.
Yeah Jaye a friend of mine just went through this ordeal which inspired the article. She canceled her membership but before she could she said she had to jump through about 10 hoops. She was soooo frustrated at the end of it that she will not even entertain hearing the company's name in her ear again. So letting people go peacefully certainly has its benefits. Thanks for stopping by on me.
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Thank you for sharing a not to forget sie of our product selling procedure. Good advice and proposals on how to address the percentage of our target audience who abandon the cart.
The percentage is in fact about 50% of the potential buyers that abandon the cart and not going through with the purchase. As such it can be of massive effect to do something about this in the offer we provide.
At least making sure to get their email, then we can do an email campaign afterwards.
Roy
Thanks Roy.
A key statistic that is that the conversion rate of e marketing campaign is typically between 2% and 4%. When you apply a re targeting campaign it jumps up to 41%. That's a number we would be wise to pay attention to.
Appreciate the solid comment.
Hugh
💯, Hugh :-)