We joined LoyaltyLion, Govalo, Nacelle Company, and more in JustUno’s Shopify Master Class series sharing how to build a subscription experience that maps to your customer journey. Gaby, our Founder and CEO, takes your customer from subscriber to engaged customer to delighted advocate to brand champion, highlighting specific techniques to optimize for subscriptions at each phase.

Subscriber

Subscribing is the first step in creating a long-lasting relationship with your customers. To convert one-time shoppers to subscribers, offering a seamless native Shopify checkout experience with advanced subscription options is crucial. As a best practice, many brands display a brief description of what their subscription program entails and how flexible it is directly on the product page under their subscribe button. This is an opportunity to specifically mention how customers can skip or cancel their subscription at any time. Providing flexibility and transparency throughout the subscription process is an important consideration for consumers and establishes trust. 

‍Engaged Customer

In Smartrr’s white-labeled customer account portal, subscribers can swap their products for the month, add on one-time items or subscribable items, skip that month, or cancel their subscription entirely. Engaging customers can take place in various formats, like emails and SMS. Communicating with subscribers to let them know about an upcoming order and granting them the flexibility to change or cancel orders further builds trust throughout the customer journey. Smartrr customers have reported a 70% decrease in customer support tickets, led by the customer’s ability to manage their subscription seamlessly within the customer account portal. By engaging the end consumer in these ways, brands cultivate more thoughtful, fruitful relationships, which, in turn, improves average order value, lifetime value, and retention. 

Delighted Advocate

A flexible customer account portal allows you to add on a variety of key features, products, and tech stack options to delight your customers. Brands can include special, member-only benefits that only subscribers receive, such as getting exclusive gifts, special promotions and discounts, and early access to new products in an effort to reward member loyalty. Help improve your AOV by adding the option for subscribers to receive certain discounts off of any additional products they add to their order. Many brands take advantage of reward offerings for subscribers, such as giving subscribers X percent off of their 10th order, a free product with an order, or birthday gifts. 

We advise that your account portal should be customized to match your brand and your customer’s specific needs. Knowing what your product is, who your consumers are, and what will mean the most to them are important aspects to consider when customizing your account portal. For example, beauty brands versus food brands have different customer experiences, which should be taken into consideration when crafting their account portals. 

Brand Champion

Build champions by leveraging your loyal subscriber base to create brand awareness with referrals and gifting features. Aim to get loyal customers to continue to buy your products, buy more products, and gift products so that your brand awareness extends to friends and family as well. Having referrals directly in their customer portal simplifies the referral process, whether customers spread the word through socials, unique links, or via email. Many brands take advantage of referrals like “Give 10, Get 10”, where if you refer a friend, you each receive a $10 credit, ensuring that subscribers directly benefit from their referrals. 

Brand Spotlight: Graza

Graza, a recently launched olive oil company, is a great example of a brand that has a strong product page and customer account portal adjusted to fit the needs of their unique customer base throughout the customer journey. Subscribe and save is the default option on their product page, which is great to include for a product meant to be used frequently and replenished regularly. Subscribers receive exclusive perks, such as a discount on the products as well as the convenience of subscribing. Additionally, Graza offers four different quantity options, with free shipping and additional discounts as you increase your purchase, creating a mutually beneficial relationship between the company and the customer. 

Takeaways

All things considered, subscribers are your most loyal customers and your growth strategy should be built around gaining and maintaining their trust, delighting them with exclusive perks, and establishing a long-term relationship. Through the Smartrr Method, our brands have seen double subscription growth in the first 90 days of using Smartrr. 

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