How to Retain Clients and Get Money Back for Your SaaS Business

The lifeblood of every SaaS business model is subscription revenue. 

It appears to be the ideal model. A customer pays a monthly fee to continue having access to your product after subscribing to it. Easy, yes? 

If SaaS subscriptions aren't set up with the user experience in mind, they could potentially end up costing firms’ money. A day will come when you won't be able to process a customer's subscription payment because they entered the erroneous card details, or their card expired without them recognising it. 

Involuntary churn is one of the unacknowledged causes of client losses in the SaaS sector and can be brought on by incorrect payment information. This occurs when a customer vacates either unknowingly or against their choice. Involuntary churn accounts for 7.2% of total sector attrition and 7.5% of churn in the SaaS industry. 

The good news is that there are strategies for limiting this churn and preventing it. You can reduce the likelihood that a customer's card payment will fail and ensure that recurring payments are completed without any problems by putting certain protection measures in place. 

Let's look at how you can implement these procedures in your own company. 

Why unintentional customer churn and unsuccessful payments coexist

Reducing unintentional churn and maintaining your recovered revenue go hand in hand. 

Providing an outstanding user experience for your consumers is a component of both characteristics. You can keep your consumers satisfied and continue to make money if you have the proper procedures in place. 

It's critical to define involuntary churn before delving too further into how to maintain your revenue flow. Imagine the normal payment cycle you might have established for your clients: 

They subscribe to your service. On the 28th of that month, they will receive their money. Their card on file's initial charge is unsuccessful. Your system then sends your customer an email alerting them to the fact that their charge has failed and that failure to respond could result in them losing access to your product.If the client does nothing, the subsequent attempt to charge their credit card for payment also fails.Your system deactivates their subscription and either switches them back to a freemium version of the product or cancels their account after the third unsuccessful attempt to collect payment. 

The numerous causes of the failed payment collections, however, are not revealed by this cycle. 

Planning for involuntary churn is essential to revenue recovery for the reasons listed above. There are various ways to plan, such as:

Creating a cycle of "dunning" emails that remind your consumers to update their card information or payment processing preferences.Examine the internal updating of card information. Is it accurate for updated customer information to transfer to your payment system?Check that your payment processing stops fraud and is free of gateway problems. 

These are three actions you may do to increase revenue and reduce client attrition. 

There are three methods you might try to get your money back

Provide easy payment processing for your clients.

The year 2020 has just begun, and clients now expect you to automatically collect money rather than hope for it. 

If you're still issuing invoices and requesting that consumers pay for their subscriptions manually, this can delay payments in addition to adding complexity to the process. Because to misplaced invoices and unintentional forgetfulness on the part of some clients, subscriptions may be jeopardised. 

Giving your clients a seamless, automatic experience while collecting their monthly fees is the simplest approach to prevent this. Not only should your payment page make the customer's subscription process painless, but it should also make it simple for them to amend their payment information at any time. 

Here are a few strategies you can use to streamline your customers' membership payments: 

Create a specific page or portal where clients can update their information: Anytime a consumer needs to, not just after a failed transaction, they should be able to amend their payment information. Make sure your clients always have access to this choice.Protection first: Customer payment information should always be entered in an encrypted environment. Maintaining customers requires keeping their credit card information secure. Who wants to do business with a business that lacks a safe payment system?Keep it simple, even if they're using a phone: Your clients are incredibly busy. Make certain that your payment portal or website is responsive on all devices. The more likely they are to update their payment information if they may do so while at work or on their commute.Verify that everything is functioning properly: Despite how fantastic technology is, we are all aware that it occasionally fails. Be sure to check that your payment cycle and update pages are functioning properly. If not, you might discover that customers have attempted to update their payment details but have been unsuccessful. 

You may take care of all of this by using a full-service payment processing platform. To handle the full subscription lifetime, from acquisition to activation, FastSpring assists subscription organisations. Whether your business employs proration, discount management, prorated payments, monthly or annual paid plans, or free trials, FastSpring handles all the administrative labor involved in recovering lost revenue.

Work 365 is an Office 365 billing and provisioning automation through customer self service portal for Microsoft partners.