The Benefits Of A Subscription Management System

As a subscription business owner, you’ll understand just how much work goes into managing subscriptions: dealing with renewals, ongoing customer service, and everything in between. That’s why investing in a subscription management system can be a huge help, not only in reducing the number of admin tasks but also in growing your business.

Read on to learn more about the benefits of subscription management.

What is a subscription management system?

An ecommerce business can use a subscription management system to manage its entire subscription lifecycle from a single platform. Such a system brings together a huge range of functions, offering broad integrations so its users can get more done without needing to handle interactions between distinct tools.

Importantly, subscription management systems are frequently connected to ecommerce platforms, allowing them to automate varied processes including lead tracking, creating and sending sophisticated marketing campaigns, creating and sending invoices, processing payments, and more.

Why invest in a subscription management system?

If you’re running a subscription business, why should you make it a priority to implement a cohesive system? Put simply, the industry is growing too quickly to do anything else. According to forecasts produced by Royal Mail, the subscription market will have grown by a huge 72% in just five years by the end of 2022, taking the value from £583 million in 2017 to just over £1 billion. That means more customers, which is great, but that also means things can start to get complicated if you don’t improve your processes.

There are many services on the market that can help you automate your processes so you can spend less time doing admin and more time focusing on your customers needs. Subscription management by Chargebee is designed to simplify your workflows while making it easier to oversee every subscriber’s lifecycle: that means effortlessly managing upgrades, downgrading billing adjustments or looking at subscription renewals.

If you’re struggling with manual processes, this is enough reason to consider subscription management software. Your business requires a good structure behind the scenes if you want to grow and maintain your customers, so don’t overlook the importance of good organisation.

What are the benefits of a subscription management system?

Using a subscription management system can make your business easier to run in so many ways. It’s important to remember that a customer may change their subscription several times throughout their lifecycle with you, wanting upgrades, add-ons, and more — all of which need to be handled appropriately. Subscription management software can help with this by making you more efficient, improving the way you forecast and identifying areas to provide better customer service.

Here are some of the top benefit of subscription management:

Data-driven forecasting

Whether you want to plan for the next few months or anticipate the next few years, being able to forecast changes in your business is essential. However, if your processes are scattered and hard to understand, drawing out relevant data is going to be a big and complicated task. Subscription management systems can help with this, delivering clear analytics that contribute to important decision-making.

With a detailed but simple dashboard, you can access information such as growth rates, subscription cycle durations and more. You can make plans based on accurate information rather than guessing, leading to better results and far less stress.

Better efficiency 

How long is your team spending on manual tasks? Chances are they’re using up valuable time on processes that can be straightforwardly automated. Admin is a huge task for anyone to take on, and it can lead to many lost hours, getting in the way of important tasks that genuinely need creativity. Improving your workflow and productivity will help massively.

Furthermore, if everything is done manually and a new person joins your team, imagine how long it will take to get them up to speed compared to learning how automated processes work. Efficiency is an important factor, so make it a priority.

Deliver a better customer experience

When you use a subscription management system, you collect a lot of data about your customers’ subscription experiences. This can be used for forecasting, but you can also improve your marketing strategy for each subscription and develop more insightful relationships with your customers.

Having a better understanding of each group means creating targeted campaigns is much easier and will create better results. Plus, by automating things like payments, you can offer a seamless experience for each subscriber, giving them great flexibility and convenience. These benefits also apply to things like subscription fulfillment, as you want to make sure the experience of receiving goods on a regular basis is a breeze both for you and your customers. This includes aspects like order tracking for complete transparency, as well as inventory management and more besides.​

More flexibility for customers

What happens if you need to offer a customised subscription to a customer but you do everything manually? It’s going to be hard to manage. Setting up a bespoke subscription and remembering to manually process it every month is not ideal — but a subscription management system can manage this all for you.

Customers can be demanding. They expect services that suit their needs exactly, so being more flexible will keep them satisfied and thus improve customer retention. A management system allows you to make these changes quicker and easier, whether it’s for a handful of customers or many.

Does subscription management work for small businesses?

Yes! All subscription businesses regardless of size can benefit from subscription management tools. You’d be surprised just how quickly small businesses can grow, and handling that growth requires careful management to ensure that demand is met and unnecessary errors don’t start to creep in.

If you only have a small team and you can’t keep up with important admin tasks, you will soon notice the effect on your business. By investing in the right systems from the beginning, you’ll end up in a much better position to identify new revenue streams, understand your customers, and deliver seamless experiences that make you stand out from the competition.

Can subscription management software save you money?

As a business owner, you probably have a pretty tight rein on your expenses, but often the most obvious areas are overlooked as worthy of investment. Subscription management can be a great way of minimising your spending. In fact, when it comes to marketing it’s a great way of making better use of your marketing efforts, such as:

Less money spent on advertising 

Online advertising is a very effective way of drawing in new customers, but it can come with an expensive price tag. As an alternative method, SMS can create new avenues for advertising without the extra cost, such as referral incentives that offer bonuses to existing customers. That’s a win-win for you and your subscribers!

More revenue from automated email marketing

Did you know that many SMS service providers will integrate with third-party apps like Mailchimp? By taking insightful data about your subscribers and channelling this directly into your campaign platforms, you can save time and money on creating targeted emails since it’s all automated. This means you can focus more on closing sales than generating leads, something that’s far more likely to benefit you financially.

Better success retaining subscribers

Retaining customers is much cheaper than acquiring new ones, so your efforts should be focused on creating a seamless experience for your current subscribers — something that automation can help with. By retaining more customers in the long run (by fostering better relationships and services) you can save money on acquiring new leads.

Overall, a subscription management system can help make managing your subscriptions easier. You can easily set up new subscriptions, manage customers’ existing subscriptions, and stay on track with customer expiration dates, helping your business thrive. So why not start looking for suitable software today?