Cratejoy and Bellwethr RetentionEngine: Improving Subscription Box Retention
CrateJoy is the leading ecommerce platform for subscription box businesses. They’ve created a suite of powerful features that subscription box entrepreneurs love, including a subscription box CRM, website builder, and the CrateJoy Marketplace with over 40,000 subscription box fanatics.
Here’s where Bellwethr RetentionEngine makes CrateJoy even better: Retention.
As subscription fatigue sets in around the world, retention will become even more important for subscription box businesses. Those that can keep customers happy and minimize churn will survive the subscription purge and come out stronger than ever.
CrateJoy customers can improve their customer retention strategy with Bellwethr RetentionEngine. Here’s how:
1. Offer Incentives to Stay
CrateJoy lets you survey cancelling customers to learn why they’re leaving. But then… poof... they’re gone. There’s nothing else you can do to keep them.
The problem with this approach is that most customers actually want you to save them. Accenture found that 81% of cancelling customers said the business could have done something to retain them.
If there’s an 81% chance you could retain a customer, wouldn’t you take it?
That’s where RetentionEngine comes in. Like CrateJoy, RetentionEngine surveys cancelling customers to learn why they’re leaving.
But then, critically, RetentionEngine offers the customer an incentive to stay.
Common cancel resolutions include:
- One-time discount
- Preview of next month’s box
- Special gift (like a gift card)
- Direct line to customer support or founder (Helpful if technical issues were their reason for leaving)
If the incentive doesn’t suit the customer’s needs, they are prompted to pause their subscription. Pausing is a popular option for subscription box customers. The most common reason for cancelling is, “I have too much product.” Pausing allows them to take a break and come back in a few months.
Finally, if they choose not to pause, they can continue to cancellation.
In the immortal words of Michael Scott, “You miss 100% of shots you don’t take. - Wayne Gretzky.”
You have a 100% better chance of retaining customers when you ask them to stay. Why not take the shot?
2. AI-Driven Optimization
Unlike other retention tools (none of which integrate with Cratejoy, by the way), Bellwethr RetentionEngine doesn’t just use basic if-then logic.
Other tools simply pair a reason for cancelling with an incentive. For example, if a customer chooses, “The subscription is too expensive,” they receive a discount offer.
RetentionEngine goes well beyond that. Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, RetentionEngine actually learns which offers work best for different customers.
The cancellation survey is just one piece of information that RetentionEngine uses to choose the right offer. We also consider if they’ve tried to cancel in the past.
RetentionEngine’s AI is different because it learns in the same way humans learn: Through trial-and-error. With each save attempt, RetentionEngine learns what works and what doesn’t, optimizing your retention strategy over time. And you don’t have to lift a finger.
3. Customized Cancel Flow
Subscription box businesses vary widely. There are $200/month fashion boxes and $15/month candle boxes. There are wine clubs and there are protein bars. From books to bath bombs to board games, there is truly a subscription box for everyone.
And that’s exactly why a one-size-fits-all retention strategy won’t cut it.
Bellwethr RetentionEngine gives you the tools to create a customized cancel flow. You can offer one incentive or ten—it’s completely up to you.
If you don’t want to do discounts, then add an extra gift to their next box. Or, you can give them the option to pause their subscription for a month, two months, or three months.
We’ve found the best cancel flows combine several options. Here’s the cancellation flow that works best for our customers:
It’s more than a customer cancel flow. It’s a laboratory for experimenting with the retention offers. Simply add different offers and incentives you’d like to test, and RetentionEngine’s AI will work out the rest.
CrateJoy and Bellwethr RetentionEngine: Better Together
We love CrateJoy and the tens of thousands of subscription box entrepreneurs who use it. We wanted to create a tool that helped you get the most out of the CrateJoy platform, and ultimately, grow your business.
Bellwethr RetentionEngine integrates seamlessly with your CrateJoy store. It’s also easy to customize to match the look and feel of your brand. Most importantly, RetentionEngine boost retention rates by an average of 28%. What would that added profit mean to your business?
If you’re a CrateJoy customer and ready to save more customers, sign up for your free trial of RetentionEngine today!