Making your subscriber journey airtight

B2C businesses are increasingly shifting toward subscription-based models. This shift requires not just attracting customers but ensuring that their journey through your service is seamless, engaging, and value-driven. An airtight subscriber journey is critical for retaining customers, reducing churn, and fostering long-term loyalty. 

In this article, we’ll explore how B2C subscription companies can craft a subscriber journey that ensures sustained customer satisfaction and business growth.

Understanding the importance of the subscriber journey

The subscriber journey encompasses every touchpoint a customer has with your brand, from the moment they consider subscribing to the point of loyalty and renewal — or cancellation (see the 5 stages of the journey here). A well-designed journey anticipates customer needs, removes friction, and consistently delivers value. In the Subscription Economy, where the relationship with the customer is ongoing, a poorly executed subscriber journey can lead to dissatisfaction, high churn rates, and ultimately, a loss of revenue. However, a seamless and engaging journey can transform casual users into loyal advocates for your brand.

Step 1: Design a customer-centric offering

The cornerstone of an airtight subscriber journey is a compelling, customer-centric offering. Your subscription service must provide clear, tangible benefits that resonate with your target audience. This involves not only what you offer but how you package and price it. For example, GoPro successfully transitioned from being seen solely as a camera company to a service provider by introducing a subscription that offers cloud storage, premium editing tools, and camera replacement services. This evolution was not just about adding value but about anticipating and meeting customer needs in a more integrated way. We call this strategy Total Monetization.

Strategies to design a customer-centric offering

• Continuous market research: Regularly gather insights into what your customers value most. This could involve surveys, focus groups, or analyzing usage data to understand their behavior and preferences.

• Flexible pricing models: Implement pricing models that align with customer usage patterns, such as tiered pricing or pay-per-use. This not only attracts a broader audience but also allows you to cater to different customer segments.

• Regularly reevaluate your offering: As your market evolves, so should your offering. Regularly refresh your services to stay relevant and ensure that your pricing reflects the perceived value.

Step 2: Optimize the subscriber experience

A key element of the subscriber journey is the overall experience from onboarding to renewal. A frictionless and intuitive experience is crucial for reducing churn and improving customer satisfaction. The Seattle Times, for example, improved its subscriber experience by using a cloud-based solution to launch a seamless, digital sign-up process, process payments, and manage readers throughout their entire subscriber lifecycle. This drove new digital conversions 30% and retention by 25% within a six-month period.

Strategies to optimize the subscriber experience

• Streamlined onboarding: Simplify the sign-up process by minimizing the steps required to create an account and subscribe. Provide clear instructions and a user-friendly interface to reduce friction.

• Personalized communication: Use data-driven insights to tailor your communication with subscribers. Personalized messages, whether through email or in-app notifications, can significantly enhance engagement by highlighting the value they are receiving.

• Self-service options: Empower customers with tools to manage their subscriptions independently. This includes features like pausing a subscription (which is very popular with consumers), upgrading or downgrading plans, and easy access to billing information. A robust self-service portal not only improves the customer experience but also reduces the burden on customer support teams. 

Step 3: Build a resilient financial model

A strong financial model is the backbone of a successful subscription business. It enables you to manage recurring revenue effectively, forecast growth, and scale your operations. A resilient financial model also allows you to adapt to changes in the market without compromising on service quality. For instance, NCR’s pivot to a subscription-based model for its point-of-sale system, NCR Silver, required a complete overhaul of its financial processes, which ultimately led to a significant increase in recurring revenue.

NCR “uncovered previously unavailable metrics like MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) and ARPC (Average Revenue Per Consumer) and saved at least five full-time equivalents’ worth of work.” Read more about NCR’s experience here.

Strategies to build a resilient financial model

• Automate financial processes: Automate revenue recognition and other key financial processes to reduce errors, save time, and ensure compliance with financial regulations.
  
• Track key metrics: Regularly monitor essential subscription metrics like Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV), and churn rate. These metrics provide valuable insights into the health of your subscription business and inform strategic decisions.
• Manage cash flow effectively: Subscription businesses often face cash flow challenges, especially during periods of rapid growth. Ensure that your financial model accounts for these fluctuations by maintaining a healthy balance between acquiring new subscribers and managing costs.

Step 4: Streamline business operations

Efficient operations are critical to supporting a growing subscriber base. The order-to-cash process, in particular, is more complex in subscription businesses compared to traditional models. Companies like Zoom, which experienced exponential growth during the pandemic, illustrate the importance of having streamlined operations to handle sudden increases in demand.

Strategies to streamline business operations

• Optimize billing systems: Implement billing systems that can handle the complexities of subscription services, such as prorated charges, upgrades, downgrades, and recurring payments. Automated billing reduces manual errors and improves customer satisfaction.
• Enhance payment collection: Utilize tools like automated dunning processes and credit card updaters to improve collection rates and reduce revenue leakage. Offering multiple payment options also enhances the convenience for customers and reduces barriers to payment.
• Scalable infrastructure: As your business grows, ensure that your operational infrastructure can scale accordingly. This includes everything from customer support systems to fulfillment and delivery processes.

Step 5: Architect a scalable technology framework

Your technology infrastructure plays a crucial role in supporting the subscriber journey. As your business scales, your technology needs to be robust enough to handle increased traffic and complex transactions, yet flexible enough to integrate new services or pivot as needed. Siemens Healthineers, for example, successfully launched a digital subscription service by integrating a subscriber-centric system into its existing architecture, allowing it to scale rapidly without compromising on service quality. The results: A more than 60% reduction in the number of manual process steps and processing time shortened by about 75%.

Strategies to architect a scalable technology framework

• Ensure system reliability: Invest in systems that can handle unexpected spikes in demand, such as during promotional periods or product launches. This prevents system downtime and ensures a consistent customer experience.

• Integrate key systems: Seamless integration between your CRM, ERP, and other business systems is essential for maintaining a unified view of the customer and improving operational efficiency. This also facilitates better decision-making and enhances the overall subscriber experience.

• Future-proof your architecture: As you grow, your technology needs will evolve. Ensure that your architecture is designed with scalability in mind, allowing you to add new features, services, or even entire business units without requiring a complete overhaul.

The path to subscription success

In the Subscription Economy, the customer journey doesn’t end at the point of sale — it’s just the beginning. An airtight subscriber journey requires careful planning, continuous optimization, and a deep understanding of customer needs. By focusing on designing a customer-centric offering, optimizing the subscriber experience, building a resilient financial model, streamlining operations, and architecting a scalable technology framework, B2C businesses can create a subscriber journey that not only meets but exceeds customer expectations.

The rewards of getting it right are significant: lower churn rates, higher customer lifetime value, and a loyal customer base that advocates for your brand. As consumer preferences continue to shift towards access and away from ownership, the businesses that master the subscriber journey will be the ones that thrive in this new economy.

By following the strategies outlined in this guide, your B2C business can craft an airtight subscriber journey that ensures long-term success and sustainable growth in an increasingly competitive market.