Create a self-service portal to manage subscriptions

Everyone loves a self-service portal. But this is where the real challenges begin. Buying may be hard, but enabling subscribers to manage their accounts is harder. Subscriptions bring complexity: legacy products, varied lifecycle statuses, migrations, data design choices. Creating a smooth experience without hurting retention is difficult. Personalisation is powerful but requires segmentation and testing infrastructure most companies lack.

As a result, most portals are limited: view your subscription, download invoices, update a payment method. Anything more, call support. In B2B this means salespeople waste time on small renewals, in B2C it floods contact centres with frustrated customers. Companies must do better.

Core self-service functions

A subscription portal should include:

• Subscription management: View plan, billing frequency, terms, and pricing.
• Plan changes: Upgrade, downgrade, or switch tiers.
• Renewals: Renew, auto-renew, pause, or resume.
• Payments: Update payment methods.
• Billing: Access history and invoices.
• Cancellations: Cancel easily, with clarity on impacts.
• Promotions: Apply discounts or codes.
• Permissions: Control who can manage subscriptions (important in B2B).

The complexity behind “view my subscription”

Linking a customer to their Zuora account sounds simple, but rarely is. Customers may have multiple accounts, requiring consolidation into one ecommerce account. Then comes display and integration choices:

• Name: Product vs offer vs promotional name.
• Price: Current vs upcoming, discounted vs standard, unit vs total. Which Zuora object to use? Which version?
• Charges: Show last and next charges, including credits or discounts.
• Term: Fixed, evergreen, or hybrid. Displaying commitments clearly matters.
• Status: Zuora statuses (Active, Pending, Cancelled, etc) often need translation for customers.
• Type: One-off, gift, recurring, usage-based.
• Auto-renew: Separate from auto-pay, but equally critical.
• Payment methods: One global default or subscription-specific via Advanced Payment Method.
• Delivery address: Needed for physical products, with constraints.
• Action buttons: Upgrade, downgrade, change quantity, manage add-ons, cancel, renew, reactivate.

And that’s just display. Making changes adds another layer of complexity. No wonder so many companies stop at the basics.

How Limio keeps it simple

But you don’t have to give up with Limio because we make it simple! Limio Components will dynamically provide a comprehensive view of customer orders and subscriptions. It acts as a central hub where users can access detailed information about each order processed through the Limio platform (and outside!). We allow for easy tracking and management of orders, offering insights into various aspects like order status, customer details, product information, and pricing. Additionally, it supports export functionality, allowing for the data to be downloaded and used for further analysis or reporting. This feature is particularly useful for businesses looking to streamline their order management process, offering a clear and concise overview of all orders in one place.

Define downgrade/upgrade logic and create self-service experience

Let’s get in the nitty-gritty and a particularly difficult experience to structure: the upgrade or downgrade experience. Before even talking about what happened on the self-service portal, you will need to think about how you define your upgrade and downgrade path. For example, you may want Digital subscribers to only be able to change their billing frequency, but not be able to upgrade to Digital + Print due to delivery rules. Or you may want your SMEs customers to upgrade from Bronze to Silver but not your Enterprise Gold subscribers to downgrade to Bronze. You may also want to encourage customers to upgrade with discounts, or you may have rules around add-ons when someone downgrades, or you may want to enable someone to only do end of term downgrades but process immediate upgrades. And you also may need to think about currencies and make sure you are showing upgrades and downgrades in the correct currencies. Lots to think about right? Here’s a breakdown of what matters:

Clear Communication: Ensure customers understand the benefits and any potential drawbacks of changing their subscription level. This includes providing detailed information on features, pricing, and how the change will affect their current service.‍

• Seamless Process: The switch should be easy to initiate and complete. You should minimise steps in the process and ensure it can be done directly from the user interface, without needing to contact customer support.
• Customised Experience: Tailor the upgrade/downgrade path to individual user needs. For instance, present relevant offers based on their usage history or preferences.
• Pro-Rata Adjustments: Explain how billing changes will be handled, such as whether customers will be credited or debited for the difference in subscription costs. This is particularly important for mid-cycle changes.
• Transparent Terms and Conditions: Clearly state any terms related to the subscription change, including commitments, cancellation policies, and any changes in service levels.
• Confirmation and Feedback: After a customer completes a subscription change, send a confirmation message.
• Customer Support: Provide easy access to customer support in case users have questions or encounter issues during the process.

So how do you do this commerce experience in practice with Zuora? You should:

• Display the current subscription and offer: Your subscriber should be clear on what they are about to show. This will require you to work out what Product and Pricing in the current Zuora Subscription.
• Display the available upgrades and downgrades: Assuming you have built some logic, either hardcoded, set in Zuora custom fields, or defined in a third-party tool, you will then need to display all the available downgrades and upgrades, making the relevant Zuora Catalog API calls.
• Confirm the changes: Show a preview of the old and new subscription offers, highlighting additional costs or pro-ration, making use of the Zuora Preview functionality. Also display the payment method and addresses used for the change and allow them to be changed, making separate API calls to the Payment Methods and Contact endpoints in Zuora. Finally confirm the terms & conditions of the new products, as well as included features.
• Process the changes: Back to orchestration! Salesforce, Zuora, entitlement, fulfilment systems all need to be updated to provide a seamless billing, customer service and access experience. This can be quite complex - do you use an Add/Remove Product Order or an Update Product Order? How do you communicate to the entitlement system the future-dated impact of changes? This all needs to be considered. Again, you’ll also want to handle failures and performance issues gracefully, with an ability to report and monitor them.
• Confirm the changes: Ok, success, upgrade or downgrade is successfully processed! Now you should confirm this back to the customer via an order confirmation page, that recaps similar information to the ‘confirm the changes’ step. However, instead of a Zuora Preview, you will be directly querying the Zuora Subscription endpoint.

How Limio personalise the upgrade and downgrade experience

Limio has your back on upgrades and downgrades. You don’t need to build anything. Limio includes a Journey builder, which allows you to determine upgrade and downgrade paths based on the subscriber’s current offer, but also segment or purchase country. Once that’s set, Limio Components can help you create the upgrade and downgrade experience end-to-end, from displaying the subscription, to the available offers, to previewing the change and confirming the changes. And the subscription overview will also show the impact of the upcoming changes. But if you don’t like how we do it, our SDK allows you to create bespoke upgrade and downgrade experiences and implement your own business rules.

Create a cancellation flow with loss prevention

Letting your customer cancel is somewhat an easy process. What is harder is to attempt to prevent cancellation while not frustrating customers. Even more complex in B2C is to respect evolving regulations around cancellations. When allowing subscribers to cancel online, several important considerations should be taken into account:

• Ease of Process: Ensure the cancellation process is straightforward and accessible, avoiding complex procedures that can frustrate customers.
• Feedback Collection: Implement a step in the cancellation process to gather feedback, helping you understand why customers are leaving and how to improve your service. Feedback reasons will need to be passed to different systems, for example a custom field on a Zuora Order or a record in Salesforce.
• Cancel Save Offers: Offer alternatives like pausing subscriptions, giving a discount, or downgrading plans, which can retain customers who might otherwise completely cancel.
  
  • Pausing is a complex topic and will require using the Limited Availability feature of Zuora Suspend/Resume.
  • Giving a discount will require setting up a % discount or absolute amount. % are easier to handle, especially in multi-currency setup. You will need to create a % Discount Rate Plan in Zuora and be able to process an Add Product Zuora Order if the Discount is accepted. It will also be best practice to run a Zuora Preview for the subscriber to see the impact of the discount on future billing before accepting the Cancel/Save.
  • We already covered how downgrades can work with Zuora
• Clear Communication: Be transparent about the terms of cancellation, including any effects on billing, refunds, or remaining subscription periods. Once triggered, create a Zuora Cancel Order with the desired effective date - this will often be end of term (or end of next billing period for evergreen) online.
• Immediate Confirmation: Provide immediate confirmation of cancellation, ideally with a change confirmation page and follow-up email, to reassure customers that their request has been processed. Mention the last day of the subscription.
• Post-Cancellation Engagement: Consider strategies for re-engaging former subscribers, such as follow-up offers that can be re-activated from the self-service portal. Once Zuora triggers a Cancel Order, the only way to remedy this is to delete the initial Zuora Cancel Order to reinstate the subscription - this creates a data loss and is a known limitation.

These points are crucial for maintaining a positive relationship with your customers, even as they exit your service. They reflect a commitment to customer satisfaction and can impact your brand's perception in the long term and winbacks.

How Limio personalise the cancel experience

Limio can help you to prevent subscription cancellations by offering a comprehensive self-service portal. This portal allows subscribers to easily manage their subscriptions, empowering them with control and flexibility. By providing options such as changing plans, Limio reduces the likelihood of cancellations driven by inflexibility or complexity. Limio also integrates targeted retention cancel/save offers, presenting subscribers with personalised incentives to stay leveraging their cancel reason as well as segments and products information. Limio also  allows Live Chat options to be embedded thus providing customers with  realtime  help within the self-service portal if required.

Let your customers buy or remove add-ons

Most B2C businesses may not offer add-ons, but they are common in B2B enterprises, especially in SaaS models. These add-ons can include a variety of services like additional features, training, AI bots, and more. It's important to understand that these add-ons don't alter your base subscription package; for instance, you can remain on a Pro plan while adding an AI bots feature.

To integrate add-on management in a self-service portal, consider these aspects:

• Compatibility of Add-ons: Not all plans may permit every add-on, as higher-tier plans might already include certain add-ons. It's also crucial to align the billing frequencies of add-ons with the base subscription to avoid confusion. Implement logic in your system to manage this eligibility and display only relevant add-ons to customers.
• Editing Add-ons: Any changes in add-ons, whether additions or removals, will affect the billing. Customers should be clearly informed about these financial implications. Utilising a feature like Zuora's Preview can be instrumental in providing transparent billing updates in real-time as customers modify their add-ons.
• Customization Options: Offer customization options for add-ons where possible. For instance, if an add-on provides extra service hours or additional features, let customers choose the quantity or tier of these services. This can make the Zuora Catalog more complex, requiring the use of consumption-based pricing.stre
• Add-on Processing: The operational aspect of managing add-ons needs careful consideration. Typically, adding an add-on should take effect immediately, integrating seamlessly with the current subscription term. However, removing an add-on might be programmed to occur at the end of the term. This requires a sophisticated order orchestration strategy to correctly implement Zuora's Add Product or Remove Product functions at the appropriate times, ensuring smooth transitions and clear communication with the customer.
  

How Limio helps you to upsell add-ons

Limio Add-ons are a powerful tool for upselling, allowing businesses to modify existing subscriptions by adding and removing new products flexibly. Integrated with Zuora, these add-ons will seamlessly update existing subscriptions in Zuora. Add-ons can be surfaced anywhere in the commerce experience, making it a flexible and efficient solution for enhancing customer subscriptions and boosting revenue.