However, most of the businesses are now prepared for the market turbulence well before the COVID-19 crisis. How? By operating a subscription business model into their organization. The report showed that the acquisitions made by the subscriber have been staying strong at this turbulent time, with a share of about 75% of businesses not being impacted by the virus negatively. In fact, 26% of companies having subscriptions have seen a rate rise, and other reports not seeing a significant impact on their acquisition rates. This is astonishing considering how severely most of the sectors have been affected.
Soon things will be on track again and the market will be difficult on the companies who are not ready for the new challenges which the pandemic has got. But how these subscription businesses stayed strong? And what are the strategies taken from their business approaches which have retained them to scale and retain their subscriber base?
Utilizing Self-Service in Subscription E-Commerce
The optimization of the e-commerce infrastructure should be on priority and self-service capabilities are crucial for such an upgrade. Since everything was on hold because of COVID-19, businesses had no option other than to shift all possible commerce online and optimize the e-commerce tools.
No doubt, a customer is someone who remains on top but is now getting more demanding. This is the reason why technical architecture needs to handle the demands of the consumer with the help of self-service tools. The customers need to control their own subscription box business model, such as canceling, upgrading, or buying the add-on.
The Automated Business Process
The ability can make a big difference between the companies that will come out of it in good shape and the ones that won’t. Why is it so? It is because the digital infrastructure that automates the process of business enables the useful nurturing of relationships.
The automation process is spread across all the fields of running a business, which include operations like sending emails, billing, distributing and creating invoices, enabling self-service capabilities of a customer, etc. With the right technology, the essential actions in the business can occur without any need for a finance or customer service team. This reduces the chance of human error and increases the internal process. This is primarily essential for subscription box business website companies that are looking to increase their subscribers. It is nearly impossible and can be costly to process these type of tasks at scale by a normal person, so it is essential having the digital transformation which can efficiently manage the processes.
Get Ready to Be Flexible
Being flexible is the primary factor. With the customer portal which can be accessed by them, the subscriptions can be managed easily – use this as an advantage. Give an option to the customer once they are the subscriber of your service or product. The journey of a subscriber doesn’t stop after sign-up; for instance, a customer might downgrade, upgrade, or change their payment terms and plan.
As per the data from thousands of large subscription business model companies, most of their growth depends upon the upsells and other events that take place after customers sign-up, instead of the initial sign-up. This shows that knowing the customers and predicting what services and goods where they would do the invest beyond the initial subscription sign-up are an integral part of a subscription business. It is crucial to be flexible and give options to the customers.
Guide the Customers to Stay
A benefit of the subscription economy is to build mutually beneficial and stable relationships with customers. Subscriptions offer flexibility to customers, and this lets businesses be resilient in these times. It is because you can give options to the customers as an alternative to churning.
If at any time a customer stops their subscription, it is imperative to choose the time wisely to know the reason why they froze and what can be done so that they unfreeze it again.
The search engine optimization of subscription website can prove to be beneficial in most aspects. This will not only lead to cash flow but also a healthy relationship between you and the consumer, so you could always offer the best even if the time gets difficult.