Customer experience
The Customer experience topic covers best practices for managing subscriptions effectively and ensuring customer satisfaction. It explores how to obtain customer consent, handle subscription updates, and provide clear communication throughout the customer lifecycle.
Additionally, learn how to empower customers by offering self-service solutions, enabling them to manage their subscriptions independently—reducing support efforts while enhancing their overall experience.
Obtain customer consent
Complying with legal requirements, the customer must provide consent at the initial purchase of a subscription, and the customer must be notified by email of updates to the subscription. Best practices for these two processes are described in this section.
Initial purchase
At the time of the initial purchase, customers must confirm that the subscription has a recurring billing component. Details regarding price and billing frequency are shown. In the shopping cart, subscription billing products are indicated as shown below:
On the review page, the customer must confirm the subscription before submitting the purchase. As a best practice, a checkbox displays next to this text in the unchecked state when the page initially displays to the customer. The customer is required to check the checkbox before clicking the Buy Now button to submit the transaction.
After successful checkout, a purchase confirmation page displays to the customer. For subscription products, Cleverbridge displays the next payment date, the next payment amount, and a link to cancel the subscription. Customers also receive a confirmation email with this information and a cancellation link.
Subscription update
The Subscription API supports updates to subscriptions. Both clients and customers can initiate changes to subscriptions. Some changes modify the billing date and amount, such as:
- Upgrades and downgrades
- Changing the volume or quantity of a subscription item
- Adding or removing items from a subscription
- Updating the price of renewal
In all but the last example above, the customer initiates the change. Updating the price of a renewal is requested by the client, but the client must capture the customer's consent before the change occurs. For more information, see Capture Customer Consent for a Subscription Renewal Price Increase.
Disclose the impact of a change at the outset
When a customer initiates a change to a subscription, the following information is provided to ensure that the customer understands the impact of the change:
- A recurring billing component is part of the change.
- The recurring billing amount changes (with the exact amount given).
- The date the change is effective.
- The date of the next billing.
- Whether a prorated (non-recurring) amount is billed immediately (with the exact amount given).
- The subscription can be canceled at any time.
If the customer interacts with a client-hosted webpage, this information can be provided on the page. If the client makes the change with the customer's consent, the customer should be provided this information using a different method, such as by email.
Require customer confirmation to submit the change
If the client makes the change with the customer's consent, the customer should be provided with this information by using a different method, such as by email. As a best practice, a checkbox displays next to the update information in the unchecked state. The customer is required to check the checkbox to confirm the change.
Confirmation email
When any contractual change is made to a subscription, such as billing begins, ends, or the billing amount changes, an update notification email to the customer providing details of the change is generated by default.
Although this email can be suppressed in some cases, and clients can send their own email, as a best practice, clients should always use the Cleverbridge notification email because it automatically provides the customer with the information required for legal compliance.
Involve client experience
An optimal customer experience is critical to the success of any ecommerce or m-commerce business. This success factor is even more important for companies offering a subscription or other recurring billing business model because the customer experiences that company brand with each renewal or change.
A major determinant of superb customer experience is that the client properly and consistently obtains the customer's consent to subscription changes. Cleverbridge is here to help in this regard, not only to ensure legal compliance, but also to make our expertise on this topic available.
It is highly recommended, and in clients' best interests, to involve Client Experience at the outset to help define implementation specifics for making customers aware of changes to subscriptions. To do so, contact Client Experience.
Subscription billing customer experience
Customers subscribe to your subscription products using the same checkout process as regular products. Customers can check out with a subscription and a regular product as part of the same single shopping cart transaction.
In the shopping cart, the products that have subscription billing components are marked with a special note. See the example below:
Confirmation of subscription
Customers must confirm that they are aware that the product has a subscription-billed component. This checkbox confirmation appears on the final page of the checkout process:
Confirmation page
After a successful checkout process, customers receive a confirmation page. Subscription products display an extra row notifying customers about the subscription, when the next payment is due, and the next payment amount.
Confirmation email
Customers receive the same information by email. Customers are given a link to cancel the subscription, unless you have selected the “Cannot be canceled” option in the product’s subscription settings.
Orders
Every subscription interval is a unique order and has a unique reference number. When the subscription renews, a new order is created. If the customer cancels the subscription, you can easily deactivate that specific period/order. For every billing event, Cleverbridge issues a separate invoice to the customer for tax and accounting purposes.
Offer self-service solutions to subscription customers
This is legacy documentation. Cleverbridge offers a new Subscription Management Portal available for Subscription Management 2.0. For more information, see Subscription Management Portal.
You can filter the content on this page by subscription management version. For more information, see Subscription Management 1.0 and 2.0. If you are unsure which version you are on, contact Client Experience.
Once customers have subscribed to your product(s), you can offer one-click, self-service options that allow them to manage their subscriptions. There are several ways to do this:
Self-service solutions
Cleverbridge customer emails
If your company does not want to deal with user account management, you can use our email service to allow your customers to self-manage their subscriptions. Cleverbridge regularly serves emails containing unique links to your subscription customers. The links redirect customers to Cleverbridge-hosted pages where they can:
- Reactivate their subscription
- Deactivate their subscription
- Change the payment type for all future billing events
In this basic form of subscription management, Cleverbridge handles all aspects of the customer relationship. See Customer email types. After a change is made, notifications will keep you up-to-date. See Notification Types.
Customer self-service UI
- Subscription Management 1.0
- Subscription Management 2.0
If you want to provide your customers an all-in-one opportunity to manage their subscriptions, you can offer our out-of-the-box self-service UI solution. The Cleverbridge Customer Self-Service portal allows customers to:
- Deactivate and reactivate recurring billing for specific subscription items
- View their subscription plans and payment schedule
- Change their payment information
Example for a plan with a single product:
Example for a plan with multiple products:
When customers click Manage plan, they can cancel single items within the subscription:
For clients on Subscription Management 2.0, Cleverbridge offers the Subscription Management Portal. For more details, see Subscription Management Portal.
Build your own self-service UI
If your company manages user accounts and wants to offer a custom solution, use our APIs to create a Customer Self-Service portal. Follow these steps:
-
Determine options to offer:
Here are some examples with corresponding API functions:Customer Option REST API GraphQL API View subscription details, including next billing date Get Subscription query.subscription Upgrade subscription Update Subscription Item Not available Suspend or cancel items Deactivate Subscription Items mutation.deactivateSubscriptionItem Reactivate subscription Reinstate Subscription Items mutation.reinstateSubscriptionItem -
Design and integrate APIs:
Use the corresponding REST or GraphQL APIs in your self-service portal. -
Make the portal accessible:
Provide links to the self-service portal from:- Your website
- Subscription communication (e.g., signup confirmations, renewal reminders)
- Marketing emails (e.g., special offers)
The more you communicate with customers about your self-service portal, the more likely they are to renew or upgrade subscriptions.
Quick facts about self-service solutions
| Feature | Customer Emails | Customer Self-Service UI | Build Self-Service UI using APIs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reactivate subscription | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Deactivate subscription | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Change payment type | ✔ | ✔ *(Subscription Management 2.0 only) | ✔ |
| Change payment information | ✔ | ✔ | |
| View subscription plans and payment schedule | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Suspend or cancel subscription items | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Advanced management features | ✔ *(Subscription Management 2.0 only) | ✔ |
Footnotes:
- Subscription Management 2.0 only: These features are available exclusively for clients using Subscription Management 2.0.