Don’t lose touch with your customers (or their contact information!). With subscription billing software, you can handle subscriptions, payment collection, recurring billing information, invoicing and more—all while removing human error from the equation. As a business, your subscribers are your bread and butter. They’re that recurring revenue you count on, but that can also make it easy to overlook them. Unfortunately, subscription customers are those golden gems that you don’t miss until they’re gone.
It’s tough keeping up with all working parts of a company, especially automated services that you think are handled. Put them on the back burner without the right technology, and they’re likely to be forgotten. Everyone has had a bounced email, failed direct mail campaign, or a trickling of un-subscriptions that aren’t considered a “big deal.” But this comes down to basic, quality customer service and it all adds up.
High quality subscription billing software requires the latest technology, software and programs that integrate seamlessly with current and future tools. What does a good subscription billing software entail? Here are a few must-haves:
1. Configure price quote (CPQ): CPQ is especially essential if your prices regularly fluctuate. Your subscribers are keeping an eye on prices, and it’s easy for them to comparison shop. However, even if your prices are relatively stable, CPQ lets you stay on top of your quotes to make your business as competitive as possible. It also reduces manpower hours so your sales team isn’t spending hours configuring price quotes by hand to feed into your subscripting billing software. Not only is that approach outdated and time-intensive, it’s also begging for errors.
2. Quote to cash (QTC): Often a part of CPQ, quote to cash is the process of converting a quote to an actual cash sale. It’s tempting to think of subscribers as loyal customers who are there no matter what—they aren’t. Yes, subscribers might seem to have more loyalty than occasional customers, but they also expect and deserve more for such a relationship. If your quotes aren’t competitive, subscribers can feel slighted and will quickly look elsewhere.
3. Automated subscription billing: Are you still manually billing your customers? You’re asking for lost time and headaches if the process isn’t automated. Reduce (and often eliminate!) billing errors, free up time for your team and make sure the front end appears professional and uniform every single month for the customer.
4. VindiciaCashBox: When you link SalesForce’sCashBox subscription billing to process, you get quantifiable data regarding customer retention and acquisition. Already have CashBox? Check out the premium version for better organizing all transaction processes through the interface you already love. It’s a central hub to create subscriptions, approve discounts, govern subscriptions and purchases (as well as credits and refunds), and ultimately integrate subscription and billing management in your current CRM interface. You’ll still have payment data in the CashBox PCI-compliant environment. Vindicia helps you do even more with QTC, aiding your sales crew in customer acquisition and upsales.
5. Renewal management: A CPQ solution for subscription billing software has to include renewal management. Otherwise, you might make a renewal error or miss an opportunity completely. Without the original quotes, tracked changes and additions, renewal opportunities can’t be maximized. CPQ lets you skip the renewal reminders of yesteryear so you never miss one. All renewals should be auto-generated from former data that’s validated, making renewals accurate, fast and timely.
Your business doesn’t need to have thousands of subscribers or years of data to benefit from subscription billing software. In fact, you don’t even need to have paid subscribers! Big data is gold, but only if it’s properly mined. Subscription billing software is a necessity for any business with a roster of clients as is a tool for accepting payments. In doing your research for both of these necessary tools, it is important to consider all the options, including a host of top payments solutions.
