This past week we joined Gorgias, Omniconvert, Trustpilot, and Justuno in DTCX’s 5 Tools to Maximize ROI at Each Stage of the Customer Journey Webinar! Our Founder and CEO, Gaby, discussed subscription strategies and tools to maximize ROI and increase retention and LTV throughout the customer journey.

2x subscription revenue in just 90 days

Starface is an excellent example of a great brand with amazing products leveraging subscriptions to build a relationship with their customers. One effective trend that we are noticing is brands defaulting their buying options to “Subscribe and Save.” Brands are offering flexibility right out of the gate, allowing their customers to choose the cadence in which they would like to receive the product and how much of it. This, along with displaying details of what the subscription program entails, adds a layer of transparency for your customers to establish trust. For beauty products, it's hard to determine what the most appropriate cadence is, which is why granting your customers the flexibility to choose quantities and frequencies that align with their lifestyle is so important. The brands we work with are seeing incredible results; in just 90 days after switching to Smartrr, brands are doubling their subscription revenue when applying these tactics and establishing trust early on.

94% average monthly subscriber retention rate

Transform your customer account portal into an engagement hub to increase retention & lifetime value. Starface does an unbelievable job making sure that the entire customer experience is cohesive, from its emails to the customer portal, every detail is consistent with the brand. Smartrr allows for customization to make sure the subscription experience is on-brand for each merchant. Starface was able to customize its account portal in just a few minutes with no coding involved whatsoever. Frictionless account management gives customers the opportunity to manage their subscription journey the way they see fit with intuitive options to gift, skip, swap, or send now, all within a seamless brand experience. 

We have seen beauty brands specifically benefit from the gifting option. For example, if you still have your beauty products from your last order, you can instead gift it to a friend. Now that friend has the ability to try the product and later on subscribe herself. This creates champions of your brand who continue to spread the word and love to friends and family. 

70% decrease in customer support tickets

Less friction equates to fewer customer support tickets. In making your customer account portal as intuitive as possible, brands using Smartrr see a significant drop in customer support tickets in as little as 90 days. Customer support tickets that shouldn’t be customer support tickets are a major pain point for brands. The root cause of these customer support tickets is confusion around how to manage subscriptions, with customer questions relating to if they can skip the month, cancel the subscription, change an address, and more. Historically, a lack of technological innovation caused brands to be afraid of letting customers manage their own subscriptions. By having a really easy customer support function within the customer account portal, CS teams save time. Because of this, customers are also happier; if a customer can solve something on their own without contacting a customer service representative, that saves them time and stress.

5x more sales over the lifetime of a subscriber

Give your customers a reason to come back. Your subscribers are your most valuable customers, your champions, so treat them as such and roll out the red carpet with subscriber-only promotions and discounts, exclusive products, and 1-time add-ons. These customers are choosing your brand over numerous competitors, making it important to take that loyalty and expand on it as much as possible. In doing so, we want to essentially create a VIP experience by utilizing that consumer base and having them become champions for your brand.

Place strategic up-sells based on product launches or customer types for a curated journey. Offer early releases of new products and allow your loyal subscribers to give feedback, making them feel even more special and valued as customers. Offer referrals where if you refer a friend, you each receive a discount on your next purchase. Utilize gifting features for friends and family, making it easy for customers to champion your brand.

Takeaways 

Creating a beautiful experience for your subscribers at each stage of the customer journey is key. Each touchpoint gives you the opportunity to increase retention, AOV, LTV, and maximize ROI.

Check out the full webinar recording here.