Collect Failed Online Payments Automatically

The inability to collect online payments can occur for a variety of reasons, including expired credit card information, paymentClosed Exchange of money for goods and services in an acceptable amount to the customer where the payment amount has been agreed upon in advance. The customer can only pay with an accepted payment method. Each payment has an individual payment cost. processor failures, or forgetful customers. To counteract these issues, Cleverbridge provides our revenue retention tools and an assortment of automated customerClosed An individual or business purchasing your product or service by placing an order through Cleverbridge. The customer is the end user of this product, as they are not allowed to resell the purchased products or services. ​ A customer is unique per client. If a customer purchases products or services from two different clients, there are 2 separate records of said customer.​ emails.

Note

If you're a client handling your own subscriptions, you're also being supported by our retention tools:

  • Account Updater
  • Expiration Date Checker
  • Dynamic Transaction Routing
  • Retry Logic

Read more about our retention tools below.

To assess the impact of the Cleverbridge's revenue retention tools on your revenue streams, see Payments.

Revenue Retention Tools

The Cleverbridge Revenue Retention Tools work together to increase the acceptance of credit cards when an online paymentClosed Stands for a group of payment options that do not require the customer to submit the payment in an extra step after submitting the order. Online payments include credit, debit cards, and digital wallets. With an online payment option, the product is delivered almost immediately (as soon as the payment is processed which usually does only take a few seconds). fails or an expired credit card is detected. As a result, these automated tools can help you to increase subscriber retention, prevent service interruptions to your customers, and reduce negative experiences caused by authorization declines.

Our Revenue Retention Tools include the following:

Account Updater

If a customer’s credit card information changes, the Account Updater attempts to automatically acquire their up-to-date credit card information, without the need for the customers to provide it. To accomplish this, the Account Updater identifies customers who have outdated credit card information a few days before their renewal date. It then contacts their credit card companies and requests up-to-date card details. If this information is available, Cleverbridge updates their payment profiles, and the customers are automatically billed on the renewal date.

Note

As the merchant of recordClosed The merchant of record is the entity that holds legal title to goods or services and from which the customer purchases these goods or services., Cleverbridge cooperates with Visa, Mastercard, and American Express to keep your customer's credit card information as up-to-date as possible:

  1. Credit card issuers submit electronic files with updates to the credit card company when a cardholder’s account information changes.
  2. Before the renewal of the subscription, Cleverbridge submits account numbers through its acquirer for the relevant customers.
  3. The credit card company processes these inquiries against its database and provides responses to the acquirer in the form of electronic files. These files are in compliance with PCI.
  4. Cleverbridge downloads the files on a daily basis.

Note

The time when the customer's credit card information is checked can be configured. For more information, contact Client Experience.

Expiration Date Checker

If Cleverbridge is unable to update a customer's credit card information using the Account Updater, we use Expiration Date Checker on the renewal date to try and update the card's expiration date based on certain rules and logic. To validate the new expiration date, we attempt a renewal transaction. If the validation is successful, the customer is automatically billed and the customer's credit card information is updated in the Cleverbridge platform. If the validation is unsuccessful, the Cleverbridge automatically sends a Reminder > Payment expiration email to the customer. In the email, the customer is asked to update their payment details. For more information, see Customer Email Types.

Note

If the validation of the determined expiry date is successful, a history entry is made, which you can view in the History section of the PurchaseClosed An order made by a customer and the records associated with it. viewer.

Dynamic Transaction Routing

If the credit card payment fails due to generic decline, an invalid CVV, or a transaction error, Cleverbridge automatically reroutes the transaction to another available acquirer network to instantly re-attempt the payment.

Retry Logic

If the credit card that Cleverbridge has on file is correct, but the payment cannot be processed, it is possible that one of the following issues has occurred:

  • The credit card limit was exceeded.
  • The card issuer closed the card owner's account.
  • The card owner missed several payments and the card issuer suspended the account.
  • The card owner's account was flagged for fraud.

When any of these issues occurs, the credit card owner often resolves the problem quickly, making the card available for transactions once more. As a result, our Retry Logic comes into play, aiming to re-process failed payments.

Our Retry Logic includes three types of retries:

Retry Type Description
Dynamic Retries (DR) Dynamic in nature, DR use a machine learning approach to determine the optimal time for scheduling payment reattempts after the initial payment decline. DR enhance the likelihood of successfully collecting payments, and boosts the overall retry success rate, consequently minimizing involuntary churn. To enable DR, contact Client Experience.
Self-Service Retry (SSR) Designed for clients managing their subscriptions, SRR is initiated through our RetryPayment API at a time of your choice. SSR can be activated upon request. For more information, contact Client Experience.
Static Retry (SR) Following a predefined retry schedule, this automated process attempts retries multiple times as necessary.

    By default, Cleverbridge executes the Static Retry one time. This occurs 5 days after the initial failed payment. However, it is possible to customize the following Static Retry options for your client account:

    Customizable Options Description
    Schedule Multiple Retries You can schedule up to 4 retries during the 14-day period after the initial failed payment. Cleverbridge offers 2 retries free-of-charge. Any additional retries are subject to negotiation.
    Change Retry Schedule It is possible to schedule retries up to 14 days after the initial failed payment. We found that the optimal cadence for two retries is on the 3rd and 14th day.
    Combine Retry with Account Updater It is possible to combine the Static Retry with a second Account Updater attempt to maximize the retry success rate. You could schedule the Account Updater call to occur sometime between the initial failed payment and the retry.

    If you are interested in changing the configuration of the Static Retry logic for your account, contact Client Experience.

    The Static Retry procedure involves the following steps:

    Cleverbridge analyzes the return codes in the payment provider’s response for the unsuccessful billing attempt. If a hard decline occurs, such as an expired or invalid card, no retry attempt is made. If a soft decline occurs, which is often the result of a temporary issue such as an exceeded credit card limit, another billing attempt can be made.

    By default, the retry is scheduled to occur five days after the unsuccessful billing attempt. However, this schedule can be customized. For more information, contact Client Experience.

    The Cleverbridge platform automatically sends an email to the customer of the type Subscription > Retry payment notification. It informs the customer that payment for a subscription failed and that payment will be retried in X days. This email can be deactivated. For more information, see Customer Email Types.

    Before a new billing attempt is made, several scenarios are checked to identify changes that may make the retry redundant:

    • If the customer has canceled the subscription or successfully made another payment attempt on their own, the credit card is not charged.
    • If the customer has changed their payment details, no retry is made using the old data.
    • If the original transaction is not considered valid for a retry attempt anymore, no other payment attempt is made.

    When the scheduled retry date is reached, the Static Retry is executed.

    • If the billing attempt is successful, the subscription for the product is renewed. the Cleverbridge platform automatically sends an email to the customer of the type Invoice (receipt). It informs the customer that payment for their subscription was successful.
    • If the billing attempt is not successful, the subscription is put on hold. the Cleverbridge platform automatically sends an email to the customer of the type Subscription > On hold notification. It informs the customer that the subscription has been deactivated because payment failed. For more information, see Customer Email Types.

    A history entry is also made, which you can view in the History section of the Purchase viewer.

Important

To avoid charging customers twice for a subscription, you should be careful when using our Static Retry in combination with winback campaigns which utilize our ChangePaymentSubscriptionURL. For more information, contact Client Experience.

Note

The Cleverbridge Revenue Retention Tools are available for Visa, Mastercard, and American Express credit cards. Together, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express represent more than 97% of cards used for transactions in the United States. For further information about how we exchange of credit card information with Visa, Mastercard, and American Express, see the following:

Automated Customer Emails

Part of the communication between Cleverbridge and your customers during the purchase and subscription process is via email. The emails are triggered by events, such as a purchase made or signup for a subscription, and are automatically sent by the Cleverbridge platform.

To learn about the assortment of emails that we offer, and which emails we use to send payment reminders and counteract online payment failures, see Customer Email Types.