Subscription Management portal
Empower your customers with more self-service functionality using the latest Subscription Management Portal. In this portal, customers can manage subscriptions, payments, and contact details, reducing the workload of your customer support team. Customers can access the portal using the link provided in the Cleverbridge subscription email communication.
The latest version of the Subscription Management Portal is a part of CleverEssentials product package and available only for clients who are on Subscription Management 2.0. If you want to enable the latest version of the Subscription Management Portal, contact Client Experience.
For documentation of the legacy subscription pages, or for information on how to build your own subscription management area, refer to our Offer self-service solutions to subscription customers.
Subscription overview
When a customer accesses the Subscription Management Portal through the link provided in one of the Cleverbridge subscription emails, such as an order confirmation or a renewal reminder, they will be redirected to the subscription overview page.
Here, the customers can access and manage all information related to their subscription:
- Products – list of the products in the current subscription.
- Invoice History – list of the documents your customer received from Cleverbridge.
- Payment Method – your customer's current payment method, which the customer can manage, and which will be used for upcoming renewals.
- Contacts – your customer's contact details, such as their delivery, billing, or licensee address.
- Subscription Details – an overview of subscription details, including the start date of the subscription, the remaining days on the active subscription interval, and the next billing amount. The customer can also manage the automatic renewal state of the subscription.
Activate or deactivate subscriptions
A customer can activate or deactivate their subscription using the renewal type toggle.
When the automatic renewal is enabled, Cleverbridge will automatically attempt to charge the customer, using the provided payment information, at the time of renewal. In case of a manual renewal, Cleverbridge will not attempt to charge the customer, but the customer is able to return to the subscription details at any time to turn on the automatic renewal or renew their subscription manually.
In this basic form of subscription management, Cleverbridge handles all aspects of the customer relationship. After a change is made, notifications will keep you up to date with the latest state of a subscription. For more details regarding notifications, see Notification Types. For more information regarding customer email communication, see Customer email types.
Renew or upgrade subscriptions
Depending on the number of days left till the next billing date, your customers have an option to renew their subscription (for less than 15 remaining days) or upgrade (if the time remaining till the next billing is more than 15 days). The number of days that decides whether the Renew or Upgrade button can be used is configurable, and can be, for example, 7 days for a monthly subscription and 30 days for a yearly subscription.
Subscription renewal flow
When your customer clicks Renew now, they are redirected to the renewal funnel. In the default setup, the customer can review their current subscription products before confirming their renewal. This renewal experience can also be enhanced to offer one or any combination of the following changes:
- Product tire changes – Product upsell can be enabled, so that you customers can replace one of the products with a higher tier version. To give the customer more flexibility, you can also configure downgrade.
- Volume increase – Enable your customers to increase the order quantity.
- Additional add-on products – Immediately offer additional items to go with those already selected.
- Coupons – Allow applying coupons to further incentivize the renewal purchase.
The following are examples of different subscription renewals flows:
-
A simple renewal flow without additional product offers.
-
An advanced renewal flow with an option to increase volume, change the subscription term, and purchase extra add-on products.
Regardless of the configuration options, the customer will be charged for the selected products and quantity, and the subscription will be renewed for an additional interval.
Any changes made to the subscription within the renewal flow always take effect from the next billing date.
Renewal quotes
Customers buying as a business might require a quote prior to finalizing the subscription renewal process. You can use renewal quotes to allow your customers to obtain a fixed price offer which can be converted into a subscription renewal at a later point in time. Customers can access and convert a renewal quote in the subscription overview page, enabling a frictionless renewal process and reduced customer contact rate. For more information, see the Quote for Renewals section in Quotes.
Subscription upgrade flow
When your customer clicks Manage products, they are redirected to the co-term upgrade page. Similarly to the renewal experience, on this page the customer can increase their order volume, upgrade to a higher product tier, or purchase extra add-ons. The extra add-ons or quantity will be charged at a pro-rated price, depending on the remaining days in their active subscription interval.
In the upgrade flow, the changes take effect immediately.
The upgrade flow is only available on demand, after you have configured the necessary product offers and will not be accessible to your customers by default.
For any customization in the renewal or upgrade flow, contact Client Experience.
Integration
Subscription Management is integrated with other Cleverbridge tools and functionalities to ensure consistent user experience and seamless configuration flows.
Generating subscription management links
Customers can reach the Subscription Management Portal through the order and subscription email communication sent by Cleverbridge. It is also possible to integrate direct links to any of the subscription flows:
-
Subscription Overview - use the following link to allow a customer to update, change, or manage their subscription
https://www.cleverbridge.com/<client_ID>/s/S<subscription_ID>?s=<start_time>&e=<end_time>&c=<checksum> -
Renewal Funnel - use the following link to allow a customer to renew their subscription.
https://www.cleverbridge.com/<client_ID>/?scope=subscription&target=manual-renewal&template=steps&sid=S<subscription_ID>&s=<start_time>&e=<end_time>&c=<checksum> -
Upgrade Funnel - use the following link to allow a customer to upgrade their subscription products (co-term).
https://www.cleverbridge.com/<client_ID>/?scope=subscription&target=upgrade-subscription&template=steps&sid=S<subscription_ID>&s=<start_time>&e=<end_time>&c=<checksum>
For more information on how to generate the validity period and checksum of your link, see Expiring Links.
Adding URL parameters
In addition to the standard subscription flow links, you can further customize the customer experience by appending URL parameters to these links. These parameters allow you to control specific elements of the subscription management process, such as setting product quantities, preselecting items to add to a subscription, or bypassing certain steps in the funnel.
Mandatory URL Parameters
The following parameters are required for the subscription links to function correctly. They are typically included in the default subscription portal links.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
scope | Points to the new subscription portal for an existing subscription. |
sid | The subscription ID you’d like to access, starting with an S prefix. |
target | Tells the system which specific subscription funnel to re-direct to. Allowed values:
|
template | For each subscription funnel, we have different variations that are optimized for specific scenarios. The allowed values depend on the previous
|
Optional URL parameters
These additional parameters can be added to further customize the subscription experience. They are not required for the basic subscription portal functionality but can be used to enhance the flow.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
coupon | Add a coupon code to the upgrade or renewal offer. In case you would like to hide the coupon code from the user, please encrypt the link using our Session URL API. Can only be combined with |
productsetup | In case you would like to offer different products to different customer segments, use this parameter to load a specific product configuration. This is currently in beta and not available in our Subscription Commerce Manager (SCM) yet. Please contact Client Experience if you would like to utilize this functionality. |
quantity={number} | Sets the total quantity for all products in the subscription. Can be used in |
cart={productIds} | A comma-separated list of product IDs that should be added to the subscription. This parameter can be used in |
instantReview=true | Can be used in |
Receiving notifications
You will be notified whenever a customer makes a change to their subscription through one of our notifications. The most important notifications that may appear in the Subscription Management Portal include:
| User Action | Notification Type |
|---|---|
| Update payment details | CustomerProfileUpdateNotification |
| Update contact details | CustomerProfileUpdateNotification |
| Turn on an auto-renewal | SubscriptionRenewalTypeChangedNotification |
| Turn off an auto-renewal | SubscriptionRenewalTypeChangedNotification |
| Renew a subscription | PaidOrderNotification with subscription event type id = "Renewed" |
| Upgrade a subscription (co-term) | PaidOrderNotification with subscription event type id = "Upgrade" |
Tracking subscriptions
The Subscription Management portal supports integration with Google Tag Manager (GTM) using the Google Analytics 4 (GA4) standard. For more details, see Set up Google Analytics 4 in Google Tag Manager.
Subscription Management migration
While it is possible to keep currently running subscriptions on the Subscription Management 1.0 data model and only have new business come in as Subscription Management 2.0, we strongly recommend a complete Subscription Migration. The Subscription Migration will update legacy subscriptions with the renewal type and ensure that they comply with Subscription Management 2.0 data structure on the CB backend.
Given that the data model might have an impact on your system integration with CB, migrating your subscriptions to 2.0 means you won’t have to maintain a legacy branch of your integration. It also makes it easier for Customer Support teams as they won’t have to follow separate processes per Subscription Management data model, for more details of the migration advantages, please see Subscription Management 1.0 and 2.0
Subscription migration day
Your Cleverbridge contact will agree with you on a date and time to start the migration. The migration typically takes up to 3 hours but will differ depending on the number of subscriptions you have.
If any of the integration changes discussed above apply to you, please plan your change release for the same day as the CB Subscription migration. It is especially important if you are updating your integration to our REST API for deactivation/reactivation of subscriptions that this change is released close to when your subscriptions receive the new data model. We estimate that a 3-hour delay between the migration and your updates is acceptable but are happy to discuss any concerns and can provide guidance to achieve the closest possible sync between your system and the CB platform.
With the migration, the following updates are done:
- CB turns on Subscription Management 2.0 on your account. This means that all new business is created using the new data model.
- CB updates links & wording on confirmation pages and emails. With the update, customers are now linked to the CB subscription overview where they can toggle between automatic and manual renewal, instead of getting “cancel your subscription” links.
- CB turns on a redirect from old subscription cancellation or reinstate links. Customers opening those links are now redirected the Subscription Overview.
- CB updates backend data on existing subscriptions to follow 2.0 data model.
- If you receive custom reports, CB will ensure that queries are updated to account for the changed subscription data model
- If CB runs email campaigns on your behalf, email trigger rules will be updated to account for the changed subscription data model.
On the day of the migration, we recommend that you do not perform major updates to your setup with Cleverbridge and limit updates to your system integration and license management to what’s required for the CleverEssentials onboarding.
URL integration change
This section is only relevant if you currently link customers to CB hosted subscription management pages from your own emails or my-account area. There are no changes to the URL structure of regular CB shopping carts or checkout pages.
Subscription Management links
While we strongly recommend that you update the Subscription Management links to the Subscription Overview URL, CB also turns on a redirect on the day of the migration as a fallback solution. This way, old subscription cancellation or reinstate links will redirect the customer to the Subscription Overview page.
You can use the Subscription Management links not only to refer your customers to their Subscription Overview page, but also to directly send them to the Subscription Renewal or Subscription Upgrade pages.
Expiring links
If you have not yet updated your system to generate “Expiring Links” we recommend that this change is made as part of onboarding CleverEssentials. To learn more about the functionality logic and how to generate valid URLs, see the Expiring links article.