6 Key Business Tips for Continuity Subscription Merchants

What if your business were struggling and you didn’t even know it?

For continuity subscription merchants, this happens quite often. That’s because consumers are always worried about how much they are paying for subscriptions. In fact, consumers spend an average of $133 per month more on subscriptions than they even realize!

Eventually, these consumers will try to save money by cutting some of their subscriptions. How can you make sure your own business doesn’t start losing customers left and right?

Keep reading to discover our top tips for continuity subscription businesses!

Unique Challenges Faced By Continuity Subscription Merchants

Before we get to that, though, we need to address the elephant in the room. Just what are the challenges of the continuity subscription business model that other businesses don’t have to worry about?

First of all, it can be difficult to secure continuity subscription credit card processing. You’ll need to find the right payment processing partner (more on this later). And since your business model comes with a higher risk of chargebacks, you may have a harder challenge ahead of you.

Along with that, you need to make sure customers stay happy with their subscriptions. That means finding ways to market your business each month without getting too annoying, all while abiding by the requirements of the law .

How can you pull everything off and make running a continuity subscription business a breeze? These tips can help you hit the ground running!

1. Offer Multiple Payment Methods

By now, you’ve probably figured out your primary challenge. To both keep your customers and avoid unwanted chargebacks, you need to find ways to make your customers happy.

The old saying is true: you can’t make everybody happy all of the time. However, you can win over most of your customers by offering multiple kinds of payment methods.

The more ways your customers have to pay, the likelier they are to stick with your business. And, of course, the easier it is for them to pay, the easier it is for you to make money.

2. Consider An Ongoing Email or SMS Campaign

It can be difficult to find a balancing act to appeal to your customers. For example, it’s important to remind them each month of the value of your business. But if you overwhelm customers with frequent marketing, you may end up driving them away instead.

What’s the solution? We recommend using either an email drip campaign or an SMS campaign. You may even choose to do both, but your ultimate goal should be drip marketing.

With the right software, you can design great email and/or SMS marketing campaigns and send messages out once a week. This is the “sweet spot” to keep customers thinking about your business without getting on their nerves!

3. Use a Clean and Logical Merchant Descriptor

As we said before, one of your most persistent challenges as a continuity subscription merchant is avoiding consumer chargebacks. And one of the simplest ways to reduce how many chargebacks you get is to make sure your merchant descriptor is clean and direct.

Why is this so important? Some customers who request a chargeback are doing so for a pretty basic reason. Specifically, they aren’t sure what this mysterious charge is on their account!

With a clearer descriptor, you can eliminate such confusion. This won’t eliminate all of the chargeback requests you get, but you might be surprised by how many it takes care of

4. Make Sure It's Easy for Customers to Cancel

With a continuity subscription business model, you may be tempted to make it harder for customers to cancel their subscriptions. In reality, it’s very important that you make sure canceling the subscription is very easy.

Why is that? First of all, this is a legal requirement for your business. If you try to circumvent the law, you may face consequences far greater than a chargeback!

If you make it easy to cancel, you can better abide by the law. And if you offer a prorated refund for canceling before the next billing cycle, you can avoid disputes about “services not provided.” As an added bonus, your ongoing transparency helps build loyalty among your customers!

5. Always Keep Extensive Records

If you run any kind of business, it’s important to keep good records. But if you have a continuity subscription business, these records become more important than ever before.

That’s because you don’t have to take chargebacks laying down. Instead, you can sometimes provide evidence that the chargeback request itself is invalid. This only works, though, if you have the evidence!

What kind of evidence do you need? It’s good to hold onto subscription agreements, cancellation logs, usage logs, and anything else you think may be important. As always, it’s better to have records and not need them than to need records and not have them!

6. Find a Payment Processing Partner You Can Trust

Our last tip is simple. Given all the challenges you face as a continuity subscription merchant, it’s very important that you find a payment processing partner you can trust.

As we noted before, you need a processor that gives customers multiple ways to pay. Beyond that, though, you need a partner with great communication skills who will help your business succeed.

In other words, you need a payment processing partner in the truest sense of the word. Between your great products and services and the right partner, the sky is the limit for what you can accomplish!

Get the Best Payment Processing Services Today!

Now you know our top tips for continuity subscription merchants like yourself. But do you know who you can trust to help your business succeed?

Here at Zen Payments, we specialize in providing payment gateway options to businesses of every stripe. Even if your business is considered “high risk” by others, we’re happy to work with you.

Ready to experience your own moment of “Zen?” All you have to do is contact us today !