The Art of Improving Customer Loyalty with Upselling

Pandemic brought quite a change in the behaviours of the customers. The financial crunches, the hoax of uncertainty, isolation, and fear of the spread of the virus have made people uneasy and concerned. They have developed a trait of living in their comfort zone. They no longer can trust everyone and anyone. This can easily be traced to the purchasing patterns of the customers.

Studies revealed an inclination in the customer behaviours towards the purchase of the product or services from the same vendor or merchant who had served them the satisfied customer experience. According to Magento, customers are more likely to buy from the same company within their first year of being a customer if they have a great product or service experience.

Forgetting about past customers and focusing on acquiring new on-board costs sweat, tears, and blood. In this age of ambiguity, this customer-base growth strategy has more chances to backfire and plunges the efforts, budget, and time.

The rise of the subscription business is proof that putting efforts into customer retention brought more fruit than getting more leads in the funnel.

Here, the question arises how we can take more advantage of the opportunities that we have already created?

This article takes you on a journey back to the customers with the subscriptions who are already contented with your services and require a bit of the push to juice more benefits from the recurring billing model through the upselling marketing and selling strategies. We will cover what is upselling and how it can benefit the subscription services providers as well as the customers. We will also look into some other post-purchase revenue opportunities from the past and current subscribers and compare them with upselling.

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What is Upselling?

Hae you ever think why do you instantly nod when the teller at the POS asks you to upsize the meal for a few bucks extra, only to enjoy the meal delightedly? It is because you love the food and it is easier for them to allure you as well as facilitate you for the food you love. This is called upselling.

Upselling is not about attracting the leads and putting extra efforts and costs to make sales, it is selling them something extra at the optimized cost that streams more cash in the transactions and doesn’t bother their pockets.

It can formally be defined as a strategy that draws the customer to spend a few bucks more for an expensive option in return for the enhanced version of the product or better / additional services.

In the subscription business, upselling is the art of attracting on-going or past subscribers for the upgraded plan, additional products, features, or services.

Also Read: Gift Subscriptions—The Powerful Business Growth Approach to Grow your Customer Base and Revenue Net

How Upselling Is the Key to Grow Your Business and Bottom-line?

For recurring billing or subscription-based businesses, retaining a customer is inevitable as the business model projects a subscriber as the recurring source to earn revenue over time. In contrast to the upfront or one-time billing model, subscription businesses are more drawn to strengthen their customer base and boost their bottom line then, instead of spending more money to attract customers.

A subscriber is paying you the recurring payments every month because they are contented with what they are getting. It is easier and faster to persuade a paying customer than the one who has still not entered into the funnel.

Upselling is not an offer, only. It is the gravitational power forcing time, money, and efforts of the business development teams to maximize customer loyalty and pass on the benefits to grow the bottom-line.

A loyal customer is the potential source of the stability of the business and reliabaility for the recurring revenue. A customer with potential subscription health and customer life cycle push the business in upward directions with more opportunities to grow the product line and experiment with the plans and pricing. Here are a few reasons to accommodate upselling in the roadmap of the subscription business growth:

It can be used to build gainful, engaging, and long-term relationships with the customers
It can re-attract the subscribers who are on the verge of the end of the subscription or no longer a part of the recurring revenue cycle.
It can save more money than several customer acquisitions or retention strategies.
It is more resourceful than cross-selling or down-selling techniques.
It increases customer lifecycle value.
It entitles the customer with the notion of getting benefits in fewer bucks.
It improves customer retention rates.
It brings customer loyalty.
It helps you to gain insights into the market demand.
It helps you to assess the worth of the product or service.

Can Upselling Turn the Overall Customer Experience?

Upselling is possible when the offer meets the needs of the subscriber or entice their interests. It only is possible when the business aligns its growth with the insights of the customer behaviours and their billing trends.

Your subscription management software is the place from where you can learn all about your subscribers and their needs, preferences, likes, dislikes, inclinations, etc. related to the product or service.

Leverage the subscription analytics and put your efforts to bridge the gap in the products and services by providing the best customer experience across the process of recurring billing, payment processing, and revenue collection, and then aim for effortless upselling.

Upselling is the force behind the business growth target and turns the overall customer experience. Adding a few more subscription episodes into their life cycles is the omen to pursue the upselling strategies.

Also Read: Top-Notch Invoicing Solutions in SubscriptionFlow You Need to Manage Hassle-free Recurring Billing

This is How You Can Take Advantage of Upselling in Subscription Business

The path leading to upselling is clear, simple, and straight forward. Improve the customer experience, increase the customer loyalty, and draw revenue benefits of upselling. These are a few things to devise a smart upselling strategy step-by-step and monitor them to find more treasures in the customer purchasing patterns towards upselling:

Create a List for Potential Subscribers—Past and Current, Both
Strategize on Messaging and Emails
Leverage Suggestive Selling
Draw customers through social media engagement
Direct efforts and money on paid marketing via search engines
Offer promotional upselling of the flagship products or services
Train marketing, sales, and support to influence customer for post-purchase promotions
Draw revenue with personalized upsell offers
Offer customers upsell options at checkout, sales pages, social media, emails, notifications, self-service portals, etc.

Also Read: Self-Service Payment Portal: Digitally Empower Your Clients and Simplify Account Access

Selling, Upselling, Cross-selling, or Downselling—What is the Best Post-Purchase Way to Earn More Revenue?

Skyrocketing a subscription business may look easier and faster, however, it is a battlefield with a different set of challenges. In the subscription business, every aspect of the business plays a vital role in giving strength to the business. Product, plans, pricing, pre-and post-support and services, and customer relations—every trait influence the growth of the recurring revenue.

You can find the solutions to these concerns in one place when you choose the right subscription management or recurring billing management platform. Managing a subscriber’s life cycle helps businesses understand the needs of the customers and analyzing their recurring billing patterns and their preferred plans and features selection allows you to explore their purchasing patterns.

With subscription management software like SubscriptionFlow, you can not only automate and manage the subscriptions and billing of the subscribers, you can also use the platform and analytics to design and formulate the data-driven upsell and other subscription management strategies and can take other informed business development decisions.

Also Read: Overpricing Can Turn the Subscription Business Upside Down—Get Your SaaS Pricing Right!