How to Handle Unsubscribers
Lesson 16 from: A Crafter's Guide to Starting a Subscription BusinessMei Pak
How to Handle Unsubscribers
Lesson 16 from: A Crafter's Guide to Starting a Subscription BusinessMei Pak
Lessons
Introduction
09:53 2Why Sell Subscription Products?
02:53 3Great Subscription Ideas
10:59 4Positioning Your Subscription Product
06:09 5Pricing Your Subscription Product
25:48 6Interview with Stacey Trock of FreshStitches
34:29 7Subscription Models: Which One is Best for You?
23:52 8How to Manage Your Subscriptions
06:14Shipping Tools and Apps
23:06 10Finding Your Ideal Customer
05:54 11Why Marketing is Necessary
06:45 12Copywriting for Your Subscription Product
19:03 13Photography for Your Subscription Product
03:49 14Promoting Your Subscription on Social Media & Blogs
32:47 15Interview with Maureen Vasquez of Pipsticks
23:57 16How to Handle Unsubscribers
09:19 17The Unboxing Experience
06:18 18Frequently Asked Questions
08:09 19Common Challenges for Subscription Businesses
08:52 20Growing Your Subscriptions
10:21 21Interview with Wendi Gratz of Shiny Happy World
24:50Lesson Info
How to Handle Unsubscribers
Let's talk about how to deal with cancellations and un subscribes just know that unsubscribed her they're inevitable there are going to be some people who just they just want to cancel that's just you know their prerogative right? And let's talk about why people unsubscribe and I like to I like to talk about why some things happen because I feel like that helps me emotionally deal with things a lot better and that helps me understand why things happen and saw unless it affects me less I don't take it as badly is, you know, like it's, maureen was saying in our previous interview like those first few cancellations really going to be like, ah, the world hates any year my product sucks or something, so I think talking about the why really helps connect the reasons and really empathize with why people do the things that they do so one reason I think a lot of the times it's just financial stress subscriptions are a luxury item it's really something that people don't need it's just kind of th...
at fun thing. S o it's a lot of the times when people are trying to cut down on their expenses, subscription products are going to be one of the first two things to go sometimes people will also just outgrow your brand, right? So I've got some subscribers who have been with me for two years now and really how many how many scented food jewelry necklaces can you own? How many so really ask yourself how many of your products can someone really own so it's great I think of you were so if you are a product line itself is a comm streamable product where this is really not a problem for you because you're a customer base is just going to keep growing because if they love your product they're just going to keep using it but for the most of us were selling a general lifestyle gift type product there will be a kind of a life span for your customers so some customers will just outgrow you just I learned to love new things that the passion about new things they'll follow different trends and then they'll just you know their interests will change their environment so change they're just going to move on to the next thing so it's not personal the the worst thing that can happen with cancellations is that they're unhappy with your product they're unsatisfied with what they've gotten I mean keep in mind this is a mystery product right? This person who signed up has no idea what to expect in their subscriptions so chance there could be a chance that they were not happy with that s o in dealing with this third point here we'll talk a little bit more about how we can deal with specific customers who have who are in this position of being unhappy with their purchase so again it's not personal it's nothing we did it's nothing we were not a disappointment to our parents were not you know we don't stop it it's not personal ok just so people have their own reasons they have their own troubles in their own lives to work out and I think also subscriptions are not for some people if you are maybe like a type a personality control freak, you want to choose what you're receiving in the mail you don't want surprises mystery club things are not going to work out for you and chances are you might have someone you know actually I subscribe to a lot of programs and aps and tools digital stuff, but I have never subscribed to a physical kit or a physical product subscription and I'm not sure that's the right fit for my personality. I like to choose what I'm getting in the mail and I think that that it being out of your control what you're getting can kind of not drive with some people and then as I mentioned again how many pieces or units of your product can but typical consumer really have our own on dh how how often can be can they purchase your stuff so with canceling subscriptions, what you could potentially do what normally happens for me is that people would just email me they would just say I like to cancel please s o a couple of things you could do is you could just offer them instructions to cancel so on because this is all going using paypal, recurring payments, papal subscription payments there is a very specific way that people can go into their log into their paypal account going to their recurring payments and then cancel it so they could potentially do it themselves and what you can do is just provide them with a step by step here step one step two step three kind of a instruction to just send it off to them or you could just personally go in and do it for them. We have the power to to go into our own paypal accounts and to check on all of thes subscribers that are in this subscription and we can suspend them or we can cancel their their account I prefer to just go in there and do it for them. I don't want to assume that my subscriber is someone who is technically savvy or who even has a paypal account or we even knows howto log in and who knows how to navigate to where I'm trying to tell them to navigate to so I think it's all part in just giving them the best customer experience even though they're kind of exiting out the door I think it's really important to still maintain in that in that giving them that highest quality and that high a standard off experience that you can give them if you're using plug in. So if you're not doing it, d I y if you have shopped a five word press and wool commerce, chances are those plug ins have feature where your customers can log in themselves to an account page where they can manage on their website and they can just cancel on their own. So that's a nice feature to look out for if you are trying to choose or look for aps to download and use on your shopping cart. So how do we maintain low unsubscribe rates? I kind of alluded to this a little bit earlier, but what I like to do is make it really clear that my customers are totally welcome and hope they're totally welcome to two doing exchanges with other products that they like in my shop. So normally what I do is when someone asked to cancel, I asked them first, where you unhappy with the product and that at least opens up that that conversation in case they might be unhappy with the product. Most of the time, I've gotten the answer with this, just like, no, I love the products just I can't continue on right now we're going through a rough time, blah, blah, blah. But for the people who write to me to say like, I didn't like this design, as much as the other designs could exchange this out with something or what? What do you recommend? I do because a lot of people they don't necessarily want refunds, they don't necessarily want to be out of your club or subscription, they want to stay on there, but they just want to voice their opinion that this wasn't something they really liked. They don't want to quit, so what can I do? So I make it really clear on my product description that exchanges air possible and I make it free exchanges for them. My pricing is it's all built in that if for the rare instances that someone wants to exchange a product, I can afford to send them a prepaid shipping label, ship the product back and then ship them a new thing. I'm so I I normally then just ask them, ok, which product on my website are you more of a fan of which one do you want me to exchange it with? And they're always happy to receive something that they saw on the website and a big part of it? I didn't mention this and I'll mention it again, but communication is really key really communicate when payments are going to be made. When payments are going to be taken out of their paypal accounts and when your ship, when your ship dates are, I think a big part of a big problem that I tend to see with with my club is that people are always asking because they were built six weeks ago and they haven't received anything where's my stuff or, like, when are you going to ship this out? And, you know, because they don't read, I would just have to tell them that this is when it's shipping out this is just part of the cycle, and this is how things work on that almost always just, you know, it's just it's very factual you're being objective eso that normally that normally works that well, another thing for you to ask yourself is, what can you do to make your subscription special? Really think about the experience that you're giving people. So, like when we talked with stacy, you know, she talks about how she gives you all of these extra cool things. You get a cool video teaching you an extra technique, you get an extra goody like a little extra, something that adds onto your experience for crafting her her patterns so think about how you can add cool or fund things to the overall experience.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
Great course, especially the interview with Stacey (part 6).
Nuvea
Mei gives lots of practical information and resources in this course.