What Consumers Expect from Subscription Customer Service

It’s crucial for a business engaged in a recurring billing model to recognize that consumer expectations for customer service change when they’ve become subscribers, rather than one-time purchasers. Whether it’s a discrete product or an ongoing software subscription, a customer who’s agreed to an ongoing payment plan expects to be treated to a customer service experience that emphasizes the service they’re paying for. The most successful businesses incorporate the following criteria into their training, procedures, and best practices for subscription customer service.

Instant Service

The digital age has little patience for elevator-music phone waits or response times that will take “3-5 business days.” When a customer is dissatisfied, they expect service instantly, and companies need to put every effort towards making that a possibility.

Live-chat access to customer reps is an ideal solution, as studies have shown that people are less irritated by wait-times in a chat scenario than they would be in a phone queue. Even if a business is too small to realistically support the number of customer reps required to provide “instant” service, it should still strive to make a customer wait no more than five minutes to enter a direct, one-on-one conversation with customer service.

Self-Support and Comprehensive Resources

A 2010 study revealed that 72 percent of consumers in the United States prefer to be able to answer questions on their own rather than having to contact customer support. Indeed, the practice of “self-support” has become a mainstay of the highest performing businesses. Implementing an effective self-support system requires an online portal that is able to answer most customer’s questions most of the time. This can seem like a daunting task at first blush, but in reality, any business that doesn’t already have most of the documentation and information necessary to do so on hand is likely missing the mark in many other areas of its operation as well.

Whether a business is small or large, having the capability to implement quick, comprehensive, and easy to use resources and support for customers will benefit it at all levels, as well as help the bottom line as it navigates the demanding cost curve from subscriber acquisition to retention.

Not sure where to start when it comes to finding a subscription billing company that fits your needs? Download our free Six Must-Haves guide, which covers the features you need in a subscription billing service, why you need them, and comes with a bonus feature checklist: