If you want to enhance customer satisfaction, boost retention and drive revenue growth, look no further than personalised billing experiences. By tailoring the billing process to individual preferences and needs, businesses can create a more engaging and convenient experience for subscribers with recurring payments.
In the know – do data!
What you don’t know won’t hurt you. The converse is true. Know more. Do more. Achieve more. We can’t emphasise the importance of customer data more. Audiences are shifting and changing almost by the day. Even demographics change constantly. Regardless of shifts in demographics and other psychometrics, certain preferences prevail. If a customer prefers to subscribe to a service rather than buy once-off products, you can track and service them – always! You can even curate unique features and flows based on their preferences and behaviour. Once a customer realises you are adapting your offering to suit their needs, you might have a loyal customer for a long time. Who knows? The data will tell.
Market segmentation and beyond.
The Harvard Business Review published an interesting article on market segmentation. At its core, segmentation is a basic understanding of consumers and customers, then grouping them according to their behaviour and/or preferences. It’s not as simple as you might think. Segmentation goes far beyond demographics. John Forsyth from McKinsey explains: “You have two people, we know they’re the same age, we know they’re British citizens, and we know they’re of royal blood. One of them is Prince Charles. The other is Ozzy Osbourne, the Prince of Darkness. They’re in the same demographic segment, but I can’t imagine marketing to them the same way.”
Unless you understand the market segments you target and serve, you can forget about building a successful business model, let alone a subscription one.
Welcome to the flip side
Traditional market research used people’s needs and attitudes to predict their behaviour and segment markets. Big data and technology like AI have turned this model upside down. Today, it makes more sense to look at people’s behaviour before reverse engineering it to understand their needs and attitudes. The Harvard Business Review article on segmentation cites an example of women who buy early pregnancy tests. Rather than segmenting the market based on demographics like age, income or price sensitivity, they asked themselves, why? Why do people test? If you think about it for a while, you’ll realise that people are hopeful or fearful. The answer makes a world of difference in how you speak to them and what you offer them:)
How segmentation influences product offering
Once you get under the skin of data and understand your consumer, you can start developing products and services for them. It goes far beyond that. You will also develop a sense of divine timing. When to offer what, to whom, at what price, in which currency and what payment method.
European payment trends
Across Europe, consumers opt to use recurring payments for various types of products and services. It’s more convenient to pay for subscriptions, communication, utilities, insurance, mortgages, taxes, loans and transport with recurring payments. Variations your business can offer include flexible billing frequencies from monthly, quarterly, annually or on a custom schedule.
Tiered subscription plans offer varying features and pricing. Customers can upgrade or downgrade their plans based on their evolving needs. Companies that successfully offer tiered subscriptions include Adobe, Hubspot and WordPress, to name a few.
One of the biggest concerns amongst consumers using recurring payments is security. They want to know that their data is secure and their transactions safe when they select recurring payments.
If it’s industry-leading payment security you’re after, look no further. Truevo is PCI-DSS Level 1 certified, 3D secure, and processes payments lightning-fast.
Why don’t you speak to Truevo? Let’s talk about payments to scale your recurring revenue by making money flow with subscription billing.
