Skip to main content

Mastering the customer journey with Cleverbridge

To be successful as a digital business, you not only have to "engage" and "acquire" new users of your product, but also "grow" and "retain" your relationships with them. Here's how you can use the Cleverbridge platform to manage each part of the customer journey.

Customer Journey

Engage phase​

The first step in the customer lifecycle is the "engage" phase, in which you grab the interest of prospects who have no experience with, or knowledge of, your product or service. Here are some ways you can accomplish this with the Cleverbridge platform:

At Cleverbridge, the success of our clients is our success, which is why we’re constantly looking to help them acquire and build long-term customer relationships with shoppers who fall outside the scope of other digital marketing methods. Using our publisher network, Partnerize, we can help you launch campaigns with trusted publishers that make an impact on your bottom line.

For more information, see About Partnerize.

Another way that Cleverbridge can help you to engage new prospects is helping you to manage business partners who purchase your products at a discount and then resell them to new end-customers. These channel partners function as an auxiliary marketing and sales team and have access to a target customer base you cannot reach on your own.

For more information, see:

Offer free trials​

One opportunity to engage with prospects about the paid or premium version of your product is by offering them the opportunity to try it out for free for a limited period of time.

For more information, see Acquire subscription customers with free trials.

Populate your website with local pricing​

By localizing your website in ways that are customary to your customers, you can lower purchasing barriers and access more markets in an increasingly global economy. Cleverbridge makes it easy to localize the pricing information on your plan selection pages and catalogs using our web browser API.

For more information, see:

Acquire phase​

After prospects are engaged, you have to "acquire" these individuals as customers. Here are some ways you can accomplish this with the Cleverbridge platform:

Provide detailed product information​

Once you've engaged prospects, you need to present them with consistent, accurate, and detailed information about your product so that they can make a decision about whether or not to sign up. Cleverbridge provides a variety of solutions for this, ranging from our hosted product catalogs to our assortment of APIs.

For more information, see:

Offer promotions and discounts​

You can incentivize customers to complete a purchase by offering them a discount.

For more information, see:

Use our hosted checkout pages​

Customize your cart and checkout process to attract customers and allow for an easy, intuitive, and fast customer checkout experience.

With Cleverbridge, you can not only integrate our battle-tested checkout pages into your flow, but optimize these pages to ensure that there is as little friction as possible.

For more information, see:

Offer purchases within your software​

In-app storefronts contain checkout processes, order processes, or other customer self-service features that open within an iframe in your software. They create less friction by allowing customers to check out, upgrade, or make purchases directly in the application, without the need to open a browser.

For more information, see In-App Integration.

Provide a familiar checkout experience​

By localizing your checkout pages in ways that are customary to your customers, you can lower purchasing barriers and access more markets in an increasingly global economy. You can also potentially increase conversion rates.

For more information, see Localize checkout.

Offer global payment options​

When customers see the payment method and currencies they expect, they are more likely to complete a purchase. To provide your customers with a seamless online experience, we use GeoIP technology to identify the geographic location of each customer and display only relevant currencies and payment methods. This approach eliminates barriers to sign up and improves customer confidence, increasing your recurring revenue. We also allow institutions, such as companies, authorities, universities, and public establishments, to use purchase orders for their convenience.

For more information, see:

Instill confidence in you and your product​

Customers seek security and confidence in their online shopping experience. Conversion rates can depend on how well the customers trust you and your website.

For more information, see:

Prevent friction during payment processing​

Your success is our success. For this reason, Cleverbridge is proactively identifying valid purchasing trends so that fewer valid orders go into manual review. Fast order processing results in a frictionless customer experience, less checkout process abandonment, and a higher conversion rate.

For more information, see Minimize chargebacks.

Enable conversions from free to paid subscriptions​

If you've already engaged a user with a free version of your product, you have to convince them to convert.

For more information, see Customer converts from freemium to paid subscription.

Offer add-ons during signup​

You can increase the cart value by offering additional products to customers at the time of purchase. These add-ons are important because they allow you to increase the number of products purchased or offer more expensive products.

For more information, see Create recommendations.

Prevent cart abandonment​

Cart abandonment occurs when a visitor starts the checkout process, but leaves the shopping cart without completing a purchase. To combat shopping cart abandonment, you can use the assortment of prevention measures that Cleverbridge offers.

For more information, see Prevent cart abandonment.

Communicate after signup​

The first 48 hours are the most important to set up for the rest of your customer’s lifetime value. This is the time to make new users feel welcome. Cleverbridge offers a variety of solutions for this.

For more information, see:

Quickly deliver products after signup​

Once a customer completes a purchase or signup, you must quickly and successfully deliver your product or service to the individual, whether digital or physical.

For more information, see Deliver digital products.

Grow phase​

After acquiring subscribers, you need to "grow" your existing relationships with these individuals. Here are some ways you can accomplish this with the Cleverbridge platform:

Offer add-ons after signup​

Once customers have had a pleasant experience with one of your products, you can often convince them to add additional items to their subscriptions, thereby increasing their overall value.

For more information, see:

Add item to a subscription for future billing​

A great way to grow your revenue is to convince your current customers that they should upgrade to a more expensive version of your product or service that has more bells and whistles.

For more information, see:

Enable customers to add seats/users​

If your customers pay based on the number of individuals using a product or service, a great way to grow your revenue is to enable customers to add seats or users.

For more information, see:

Increase price for existing seats​

Sometimes it is necessary to ask existing customers to pay more for a subscription due to increased costs, increased value, or a change in the customer's terms and conditions.

For more information, see:

Charge for increased usage​

If your customers use a measurable amount of your product or service, you can grow your revenue by billing your customers for usage.

For more information, see:

Use our email marketing services​

Email marketing is proven to create new opportunities with existing customers. But effective email programs take a lot of work—and what works for one business may not be what works for yours. Our email marketing experts can take over this process for you and help you increase revenue within your current customer base.

For more information, see Email marketing services.

Retain phase​

The fourth step in the customer lifecycle is the "retain" phase, in which you strive to keep your current subscriber base. Here are some ways you can accomplish this with the Cleverbridge platform:

Communicate with subscribers​

There are a number of critical times in which you need to connect with your customers in order to minimize churn and maximize retention. Here are some times that have proven to be essential for customer retention:

  • Communicate after signup: The first 48 hours are the most important to set up for the rest of your customer’s lifetime value. By creating a good first impression, you can help educate your customer on the true value of your offering, which will aid in creating a stickier relationship that is less likely to churn.
  • Notify about upcoming renewal: The weeks leading up to a subscriber’s renewal date are critical. Use email and/or in-app notifications to address scenarios that contribute to higher churn rates, such as subscription deactivation, upcoming payment method expiration, and renewal assistance. Include change payment links, so subscribers can update payment information quickly and easily.
  • Communicate after unsuccessful renewal: Send the customer a message informing them of their payment decline. The communication should include a one-click payment update link, so they can update their payment information. You can also send an in-app notification warning to the customer that they’ll no longer be able to use the application if they don’t update their payment details.

For more information, see:

Prevent involuntary churn​

The less friction and the more reminders your subscribers receive, the less likely they are to involuntarily churn. To prevent involuntary churn, you can implement a number of prevention measures.

For more information, see Renew subscriptions.

Prevent voluntary churn​

Voluntary churn occurs when a customer actively chooses to cancel their subscription. To prevent voluntary churn, you can implement a number of prevention measures.

For more information, see:

Offer subscription self-service​

When you allow your customers to take control of their personal data using traditional “My Account” functionality, you not only free up your customer service and tech support teams for more pressing tasks, but you make it more likely that they remain subscribers to your product. Cleverbridge offers a variety of solutions for customer self-service, including automated emails, our out-of-the-box self-service solutions, and the ability to build your own self-service solution via our APIs.

For more information, see Customer experience.

Align payment dates​

When you align payment dates, you not only make it more convenient and user-friendly for your customers, but you also make it more likely that these individuals will remain loyally subscribed to more than one of your products and services.

For more information, see:

Initiate winback campaigns​

Even after multiple renewal reminders and strategic revenue retention efforts, there will always be those few customers who fall into the black hole of inactivity. When a subscriber has gone radio silent on your brand, you can use a winback campaign to encourage inactive subscribers to resubscribe. The winback campaign could transpire in the form of an email campaign carried out by Cleverbridge's email marketing services or some other form of communication. Here are some sub-tactics that you could use in your winback campaign:

  • Offer limited-time free usage
  • Postpone next billing date
  • Renew subscription at a new price
  • Offer discount to renew subscription
  • Change billing interval (monthly/yearly, etc.)
  • Reorganize a subscription
  • Make it easy for customer to reactivate subscription

For more information, see:

warning

Winback email campaigns sent outside of the US are only valid if the customer has given consent to receive marketing emails.

Allow downgrades and cancellations​

As a retention technique, hiding the cancellation button doesn’t work. You’re just delaying the inevitable. Once a customer’s decision is made, it’s frankly very hard to change. They’ve already sold themselves on the idea that your service isn’t worth the money. So instead of trying to make cancellation more difficult, use exit surveys to get smarter about acquiring new customers and keeping the ones you already have. Ask them why they left and what you can do to get them back.

For more information, see:


Did you find this doc useful?