How to Create an Exceptional Subscription Ecommerce Experience

Your products are important, but people always want positive, enriching experiences that add value to their lives. As an ecommerce store, you can boost your customer lifetime value (CLTV) by creating an exceptional experience. 

The subscriber experience refers to the ongoing interaction between a subscriber and a merchant. It includes everything that might impact the value of the product, the purchase, your communications, changes to the subscription, and every other touchpoint along the way. 

Customers who have positive experiences aren’t just satisfied. Convincing a current customer to buy again has a 70% success rate. Loyal customers are known to spend 67% more than new customers. Most importantly, good experiences create retention, which boosts revenue. A 5% increase in customer retention can boost profits by 25% to 95%.

This article explains the 8 key components to creating a best-in-class subscription experience for your customers.

1. Manage the Entire Customer Journey

Many ecommerce stores make the mistake of abandoning the customer after their purchase. They focus too much on the acquisition and forget to consider the retention.

Many ecommerce stores make the mistake of abandoning the customer after their purchase. They focus too much on the acquisition and forget to consider the retention.

If you offer subscription products, though, interactions with your customers will continue long after the initial purchase. That means managing the entire customer journey is especially important if you’re going to offer an exceptional experience. Ask yourself, "What happens after someone converts? What does the post-purchase experience look like?"

Brandon Amoroso, founder and president of Electriq, explains the importance of a subscription experience audit: “Everybody should go through their subscription experience and try to look at it as if you aren’t someone who’s attached to the brand. Identify all the various touch points and areas of friction. You'll start to notice patterns of where people are running into issues, and then that's when you can start to rectify that customer experience.”

For example, if one of your products requires instructions, your customers may find it helpful to receive some how-to content via email a couple of days after the purchase. Doing this acknowledges that even though the purchase is complete, the customer is still on their journey. 

Furthermore, consider how customers will interact with their subscriptions after the purchase. It should be convenient for them to modify their subscriptions and delay their shipments. 

Pro Tip: With ARPU, you can create custom campaigns to segment subscribers to offer custom messages, perks, or discounts that align with renewal counts, products in their subscription, or Shopify tags. You can also let them purchase additional products with 2 easy clicks (no login required) or delay their shipment. 

2. Think Like a Shopper

Consider how customers experience and use your website. Design navigation, category structure, copy, and images that appeal to them, not necessarily what seems reasonable to you.

For instance, you might have categories for “Women’s Dresses'' and “Kids’ Dresses,” but your shoppers may prefer to browse categories built around occasions, such as weddings, cocktail parties, or first dates. Give them what they need because their experience is most important. 

Offer upsell products that relate specifically to their purchases. Several brands get this wrong by offering additional products that are only tangentially related. Just because someone buys a juicer doesn’t mean they want a crock pot, but they might be interested in a book on juice recipes or a fruit knife. 

Pro Tip: In the ARPU checkout, you can offer customers a 1-time upsell of products that directly relate to their upcoming charge notifications. They can make these purchases without logging in. The subscriber sees 2-12 relevant products they might add if they subscribe to a particular product, like a customized shopping page.

3. Be Human, Not Transactional

People buy from people, not companies, businesses, or brands. They want to know that there’s a human being at the other end of the transaction, someone who understands their needs and will help them if there’s a problem.

Too many brands focus on the transaction. They want the sale right now but fail to consider the customer’s bigger needs and goals. They don’t consider the relationship. 

‍Matt Houlemard, Tech Partner Manager at Recharge, explains why being human is important: “When you have [relationship building] in your head as a foundation, it steers the rest of your customer journey and what you put in front of the customer.”

How do you humanize your brand? It’s different for every brand, but it requires seeing the entire relationship at a holistic level and then adding human elements to every touchpoint. These points include your email and SMS flows, the unboxing experience, and even customer support.

How do you humanize your brand? It’s different for every brand, but it requires seeing the entire relationship at a holistic level and then adding human elements to every touchpoint. These points include your email and SMS flows, the unboxing experience, and even customer support.

For one, you’ll need to personalize everything. Every communication they receive should feel like it was designed for them, which means using language that resonates with them or offering products that make sense. For another, offer lots of flexibility and generous support. 

But you can’t expect that human-to-human relationship to develop immediately. It takes time for many customers to start seeing you as a person. 

Kristen LaFrance, Director of Community at Repeat, explains why rushing the relationship doesn’t work for most customers: “A subscription is like a marriage,” she says. “But you’re never going to meet someone, go on a first date, and propose. But that’s what a lot of ecommerce brands do with subscriptions. They say, ‘You purchased it once! Now come subscribe!’”

Put in the time it takes to earn a higher LTV.

4. Position the Value

Do your customers understand exactly how the product will help them? Keep in mind that you aren’t just a subscription. You must be clear in your copy and imagery about what your customers really get from purchasing your products. 

For instance, you don’t just provide skincare products. You sell healthy, youthful, and attractive skin. You sell beauty and vigor. Those are far more valuable than creams and lotions. 

In a Subscription Ecommerce Live episode, Kristen LaFrance explains that your customers' life goals are bigger than your product: “What we buy is a better version of ourselves. Oftentimes people subscribe because they have bought into an ideal person or there's a job to be done that your product serves for them, and they identify with something. There's even talk out there that brands are the new religion.”

Find ways to align your product with that better version that your customers want. If they think your product puts them on the right path, they’ll stay subscribed happily. 

5. Make Managing Subscriptions Easy

A subscription represents a big commitment for your customers, which can create a moment of friction in the buying process. What happens if they need to modify or cancel their subscription? 

Subscribers shouldn’t struggle to make changes to their subscriptions. You can smooth out this potential friction by offering flexible options that put the subscriber in control of what they get and when. A subscriber should be able to:

• Swap products at any time
• Try new products (via upsells and cross-sells)
• Delay their shipment

On Subscription Ecommerce Live, Brandon Amoroso explains why customers like frictionless subscription management:

“I think the best way to improve LTV is to keep them out of the account portal as much as possible. I don't think I’ve ever heard anybody say, ‘I love logging into my account portal.’ But if you have tools like Recharge SMS or quick actions or ARPU where you can just manage everything through clicking links and emails or replying to texts, it just makes it such a seamless experience for the customer. So keep them out of the portal, make it as simple as possible for them, and reduce the friction to manage that subscription.”

Pro Tip: With ARPU, your customers can bypass the Recharge portal login process and make changes to their subscriptions with just a few clicks. Extremely easy subscription management is our core value. 

6. Communicate Effectively

In order to build a positive experience, your customers need to trust you, and that trust comes from communication. Delivering relevant email notifications, including upcoming charge notifications, is fundamental to developing an honest and transparent relationship.

In order to build a positive experience, your customers need to trust you, and that trust comes from communication. Delivering relevant email notifications, including upcoming charge notifications, is fundamental to developing an honest and transparent relationship.

Like we mentioned earlier, you’ll want to customize communications so that they align with the subscriber’s journey. It’s about sending the right messages at the right time.‍

For instance, if a customer is subscribed to your dog food subscription, they might be interested in pet toys or a book on obedience training. But if they’ve been a subscriber for two years, offering basic supplies might be inappropriate.

In our video on the anatomy of a good “shipping soon” email, we talk about how to communicate effectively in the emails your customers open the most. 

Pro Tip: In ARPU, you can create your own campaigns based on subscription items, renewal count, and even Shopify tags.

7. Reward Loyalty

Subscribing represents investment from your customers, so they deserve something in return. Each subscription should come with meaningful perks that reward them for their loyalty. 

Rewarding loyalty can mean offering discounts, but it doesn’t have to. In fact, Jon MacDonald, president and founder of The Good isn’t a fan of discounts. He explains, “What we’re telling people is that our products aren't worth what we charge for them. They’re worth 20% less right off the bat. We're a discount brand, we're creating discount consumers and that's a huge challenge because once somebody knows they can get 20% off their next order, they never want to pay [full price] again. So it's really something that you're setting yourself up for failure because it's extremely hard to get out of the game of discounting once you're in it because you've trained your consumers.”

How do you reward without discounting? You have lots of options. You can give them access to a community, help them connect with other brands, or give them early access to new products. (We explore your options in our guide on subscribe-and-save alternatives.) 

8. Test Everything; Often

Your last step is arguably the most important. You can implement as many “best practices” as you like (including the ones we recommend above), but they aren’t as valuable as evidence-based experiments.

Jon MacDonald, president and founder of The Good, thinks merchants should focus on the data: “Let the data determine what should be changed and how it should be changed. Instead of guessing and making changes flat-out because someone said it or you read it online, create an A/B test.”

It’s essential to carefully run A/B tests on each facet of your customer journey to optimize it. Don’t take anything for granted, even if you “know” it’s true. Use data to make decisions. 

Key Takeaway

Remember that for subscription customers, the experience is ongoing. You can’t expect to delight them once and then sell to them forever. You must keep delighting them by making the experience personal, flexible, and frictionless. Use the tips we laid out to help you create an exceptional subscription ecommerce experience. 

Next Steps

If you’re obsessed with creating an amazing subscription experience, you’re in the right place. We are, too. Let’s keep in touch. You can subscribe for notifications about future episodes of Subscription Ecommerce Live (our expert Q&A series for subscription merchants), or, if you’re using Recharge for subscriptions, you can check out the ways we help sellers increase AOV and reduce churn with highly strategic upcoming charge notifications and optimized transactional flows that help subscribers take actions in less clicks.