Explore the ways to eradicate challenges faced in recurring billing by SaaS businesses

Consumer behavior has changed in recent years as a result of technological development. Instead of regularly buying the same products, customers are increasingly relying on chargeable on-demand solutions. This is not only the case for physical products but for services too. What’s the solution for this? Retailers need to adapt to the needs of consumers in order to develop sustainable customer relationships. Here, new business models such as subscription-based are of increasing interest for online transactions, too.

However, the concept of a recurring billing solution is nothing new! Let’s take you back to the era when newspapers and magazines were among the few to come under this umbrella. Yes, it is the same concept. However, companies whose products or services generate recurring payments may face certain challenges. For instance, recurring billing solution, suppose you start by offering two subscription plans – basic and premium, but as your business grows, you start to introduce more plans to accommodate variable customer demands, say a basic, silver, gold, diamond plan, etc. As a result of the customer billing cycles and invoicing process also becomes complex. Suppose one of your customers wants to upgrade or downgrade. This ideally reflects in their future invoices and billings without any ambiguities.

Not to mention worldwide streaming services such as Netflix provides you convenience and comfort at your home. The recurring billing solution is similarly adopted by not only the leading businesses but unicorns and new entrants across various industries as well. Let’s look into the common challenges with recurring billing software and how to overcome them to create, retain and increase the loyalty of customers. 

1. Complex billing structure:

Let’s first discuss the above scenario of billing complexity. To avoid such issues, adopt an automated recurring billing solution right from the beginning. This will help you in handling such complex tasks effortlessly without your manual intervention. The recurring payment software comes with opportunities to provide customers with ongoing value. Businesses that use this subscription management solution may provide their users with convenience, greater opportunity for personalization, and uninterrupted access to the newer versions of their services and products.

2. Unscalable billing system:

For instance, if you have business in Pune and want to scale it to Bangalore too. For that, you need a certain requirement for recurring billing software. Say, there is a change in location, your business should be able to provide new language support for invoices. This may also include a new tax structure to determine the right price for the subscription plans etc. Adopting a scalable and flexible subscription management solution will help your business in multilingual invoicing and billing, easy customization options, as and when needed, etc. 

3. Revenue recognition:

Revenue recognition is a piece of cake when your business is small but as you scale the business, you face issues in recognizing the revenue collection. With subscription management software such as Smartbilling, streamlining and automating billing-related activities is easily possible. Smart record-keeping, generating analytical reports to get the insights on a timely basis makes scalable recurring billing solutions such as Smartbilling the perfect choice.

4. Increase in churn rate

One of the common challenges faced by recurring revenue businesses is an increase in churn rate. This is often caused by payment failure. There might be several reasons behind it such as credit card payment decline, expired credit card, insufficient balance in credit card. Sending an invoice and not following up also results in a churn rate. Because, expecting customers to pay before the deadline, only happens in an ideal world. Hence, Easebuzz subscriptions management software comes in handy. It reduces the efforts required for sending manual follow-up emails and reminders to the customers. The best part is, the system keeps track of all information and you can schedule a series of reminders to create a state of urgency by frequently reminding the customer about the deadline. 

5. Lack of third party integration:

Traditionally, billing might have been a siloed process, only restricted to the finance vertical. But in reality, billing spans different business functions like marketing, reporting, and analytics, sales, as well as customer support. Each of these verticals connects with each other and requires subscription information to perform their roles in the business. For instance, the sales team needs to pull up subscriber information instantly to issue discounts or coupons on the product or service. The customer support team might need the same data to address any specific customer request. Easebuzz integration with such recurring billing software covers business functions like collaboration, finance, reporting and analytics, e-commerce, marketing, sales, and customer support. 

Conclusion

We can see that a recurring billing solution isn’t a straightforward process. Billing errors can and do happen. However, these billing mistakes can be avoidable, and they can be resolved. Go beyond subscription management solutions with a provider such as Easebuzz who has your growth in mind. Robust recurring billing software can help you improve customer retention by providing a stellar billing experience.