Renewal Automation

An automated renewal process reduces churn for lower-value orders – while simultaneously lowering costs. If your sales team has been manually managing your subscription renewals, you can shift this responsibility to Cleverbridge so that your sales team can tackle higher-value selling opportunities. To learn more about renewal automationClosed Set of automated actions you create that are performed to achieve a specific outcome. This includes actions such as customizing customer segmentation, personalizing content, and automating renewal and winback emails. These automations are curated by Cleverbridge and aim to improve conversion rates, drive growth, and increase the lifetime value of customers., watch the following video:

 

 

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Instead of having your sales reps or a partnerClosed A company that buys your products in bulk for a discounted price and resells them to their customers for a profit. In legal terms, a partner is a regular customer as there is no partnership agreement with Cleverbridge in place. reach out to customers about product renewals every year, you’ll use a data-driven automated renewal process for low-value orders. the Cleverbridge subscription commerce platform can be integrated seamlessly with your system of record, for example, Salesforce, to identify orders that are up for renewal and do not exceed a certain value. It can then send an email to the 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.​ with a link to a branded digital shopping cart, all without a sales rep. Once there, your customer can interact with the options you’ve set for them, such as cross-sells, upsells and even the opportunity to auto-renew. To complete the purchaseClosed An order made by a customer and the records associated with it. and the renewal, your customer will only need to add their 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. details. With a click of Buy Now not only do you get paid, but you gain the stability of knowing their commitment to your business will renew automatically.

Example

After years of successfully utilizing cleverbridge’s commerce solutions to drive online sales, SmartBear looked to Cleverbridge to help increase its product renewal business. In the past, SmartBear’s renewal business was managed through a manual purchase orderClosed A B2B payment option in which software is delivered either immediately without the upfront collection of payment or after prepayment with proforma invoice. process. Leveraging cleverbridge’s Salesforce integration, they were able to automatically push transaction data from the commerce platform to their Salesforce instance. Rather than having to email back and forth with customers at renewal time, their account reps were able to simply set up the renewal product and pricing, generate a link through the Cleverbridge Salesforce integration and send it to the customer for easy renewal.

They’ve commented that their Sales team loves this renewal automation feature because it has drastically streamlined the renewal process and allowed reps to spend more time connecting with customers instead of doing administrative work.

Tip

To make your renewal campaigns even more effective, we also offer:

  • Email Marketing – Our team of renewal experts will tailor email campaigns on your behalf to maximize and automate renewals. For more information, see Email Marketing Services.
  • Revenue Retention Tools – They reduce involuntary churn due to outdated customer payment details or payment failures, improve the customer renewal experience, and maximize revenue. For more information, see Collect Failed Online Payments Automatically.

To automate your subscription renewal process, move your existing subscriptions to the Cleverbridge platform using the following flow:

Create a link and add the following parameters for mapping and customer experience purposes:

  • internalcustomer - assign your unique customer identifier (UUID) to the parameter so that you can map the individual within your system
  • dp - add a unique renewal date for the customer using the dynamic product parameter
  • languageid - assign the language code to the parameter. This corresponds to the customer's preferred language (ISO 639-1)
  • currencyid - assign the currency code to the parameter. This corresponds to the customer's preferred currency (ISO 4217)

You should also add the customer's existing billing profile to make the renewal as seamless as possible.

https://www.cleverbridge.com/864/purl-checkout
?internalcustomer=UUID-YOUR-UNIQUE-ID-1234-5678
&dp_97771=__RENEWALDATE:20201015__CHECKSUM:71B696A71870AF93636EDD23E88B7789
&currency=EUR
&language=de
&billingCity=Bonn
&billingCompany=Acme%20Inc.
&billingCountryId=DE
&billingEmail=han.solo%40cleverbridge.com
&billingFirstname=Han
&billingLastname=Solo
&billingPostalcode=53123
&billingStreet1=123%20Falcon%20Way
&deliveryCity=Bonn
&deliveryCompany=Acme%20Inc.
&deliveryEmail=han.solo%40cleverbridge.com
&deliveryFirstname=Han
&deliveryLastname=Solo
&deliveryPostalcode=53123
&deliveryStreet1=123%20Kessel%20Run%20Way

Call the Generate User Session URL API endpoint to protect the parameters in the TargetURL.

curl --request POST \
  --url 'https://rest.cleverbridge.com/urlgenerator/generateusersessionurl' \
  --header 'accept: application/json' \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --header 'authorization: Basic xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx' \
  --data '{
	"TargetUrl": "https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cleverbridge.com%2F864%2Fpurl-checkout%3Finternalcustomer%3DUUID-YOUR-UNIQUE-ID-1234-5678%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3Bdp_97771%3D__RENEWALDATE%3A20201015__CHECKSUM%3A71B696A71870AF93636EDD23E88B7789%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3Bcurrency%3DEUR%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3BLanguage%3Dde%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3BbillingCity%3DBonn%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3BbillingCompany%3DAcme%2520Inc.%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3BbillingCountryId%3DDE%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3BbillingEmail%3Dhan.solo%2540cleverbridge.com%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3BbillingFirstname%3DHan%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3BbillingLastname%3DSolo%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3BbillingPostalcode%3D53123%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3BbillingStreet1%3D123%2520Falcon%2520Way%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3BdeliveryCity%3DBonn%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3BdeliveryCompany%3DAcme%2520Inc.%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3BdeliveryEmail%3Dhan.solo%2540cleverbridge.com%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3BdeliveryFirstname%3DHan%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3BdeliveryLastname%3DSolo%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3BdeliveryPostalcode%3D53123%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3BdeliveryStreet1%3D123%2520Kessel%2520Run%2520Way%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3BcopyBillingToLicenseeOut%3Dfalse%0A%09%09%09%09%09%26amp%3Bshowrcl%3Dfals"
  }'

In the checkout process, the customer is instructed on how to complete the transaction and submit their payment information. If the payment is successful, the customer receives a payment confirmation, as well as delivery details. If a key generator is configured for your account, a license key is generated in this process, and the license key is displayed in the delivery details.

Step 4: Cleverbridge sends you a PaidOrderNotification

Cleverbridge sends you a PaidOrderNotification, which contains information that allows you to map the payment profile and update your local ecosystem (CRM, ERP, etc.). It includes:

  • internalCustomer - your unique customer identifier
  • subscriptionID - the Cleverbridge subscription ID
  • renewalType - whether the subscription has an automatic or manual renewal type
  • intervalNumber - the current billing interval, which for initial sign-ups is always 0
  • nextBillingDate - the next billing date is calculated based on your product settings

{
  "meta": {
    "type": "PaidOrderNotification",
    "date": "2019-03-19T14:47:34.857671",
    "schemaUrl": "https://www.cleverbridge.com/JsonNotificationSchemas/PaidOrderNotification"
  },
  "purchaseId": 123456789,
  ...
  "internalCustomer": "UUID-YOUR-UNIQUE-ID-1234-5678",
  ...
  "items": [{
    ...
    "recurringBilling": {
      "subscriptionId": "S12345678",
      ...
      "intervalNumber": 0,
      ...
      "nextBillingDate": "2020-03-19T14:47:34.857671",
      ...
      "renewalType": "Automatic"
      ...
    }],				
  ...
  }
}

There are four main reasons why you should have Cleverbridge support you with an automated renewal process:

Eliminate Manual Processes

Manually moving a large volume of low-dollar customers through the buying cycle and renewing their business can require significant time, money, and manpower. With renewal automation, you’ll eliminate those time-wasting manual processes that annoy your channel partners, sales teams, and customers. At the same time, you'll free up your sales teams to focus on higher-value sales opportunities.

Better Customer Experience

Without customer self-service, smaller customers can feel left out. By moving from an offline to an online process, you’ll make your customers happy with an easy buying experience.

Reduce Churn

Many B2B companies experience a high churn on their low-value segmentClosed Defines the specific group of customers that an automation is targeting.. This is because their sales team and channel partners do not have a strong economic incentive to focus on renewals with low values. An automated renewal process reduces churn for lower-value orders – while simultaneously lowering costs.

One System of Record

Even when selling part of your orders through an automated ecommerce experience, you can continue managing all renewals in a single system of record. the Cleverbridge platform can be integrated seamlessly with CRM systems, such as Salesforce, to consolidate all relevant data in one place.