Retaining and boosting revenue is vital to the success of any business, but in dire circumstances, like say, a pandemic, it can be easy to let anxiety take over and limit the creative scope of these options. Often the best solution requires seeing the big picture, digging a little deeper to connect the dots, and making a few strategic moves. One such way to build and retain revenue that is easy to overlook is a focus on healthy payment processing.
See the Big Picture: Member Credit Cards and Declines
Somewhere around 91% of members in organizations and businesses like yours prefer to pay membership dues through a credit card. With so many recurring payments, any declined payment can become a major concern. In fact, our internal market insights show that declines are up 33.2% from 2019. What’s more concerning is that 1 in 3 members terminate within 30 days of experiencing a declined payment. In addition to not collecting the payment, your team loses future revenue when members cancel due to a declined payment. The good news is, there are some simple ways to avoid declines!
Dig Deeper to Connect the Dots
Addressing declined payments requires understanding the root cause of the decline. These can vary: from spotty WiFi connections to insufficient funds in a member’s bank account (NSF), or even incorrect member information in your system.
Declines rooted in spotty internet connection are usually resolved when you rerun the payment. NSF declines can be trickier to work out and may require contacting the member or their bank. Finally, incorrect member information in theory is easy to resolve. For example, if a member gets a new credit card or moved addresses, you need to get in touch with them to update their account information. Though easy in theory, this can create hours upon hours of work for your staff to untangle with countless phone calls.
Implement Strategies for Preventing Declines
Start with the mindset that declines will happen. Then, the question becomes, what can you do to make it easier when they do?
The following three strategies are a good start to answering that question:
1. Be Proactive
Get ahead of the game by tracking cards that are about to expire and reaching out to members before drafting a payment. Taking time to find resources, like this blog, is an important step toward building a more proactive payments procedure.
2. Be Targeted
Once you’ve identified the cause of a decline, you can employ targeted communication. Targeting members is key to developing a personalized communication strategy. The more personalized your outreach is, the better people will respond. Something like, “Hey, we noticed your card expired. Can we update that information so we can keep you registered for the personal training you’ve enjoyed?” feels better than “Hey, we see you owe us $50.”
3. Be Persistent
It can take up to seven different points of contact before members actually resolve the payment decline - persistence is key! Decline recovery is most successful during the first week after a decline, so it’s important to contact members the day after the decline. This helps build communication that will resolve the decline quickly, and ultimately help you retain more revenue.
Tools of the Trade
Following these simple steps can help you retain more revenue for your organization or business, but an experienced payment provider can take your retention to new heights. A payment solution that offers an automatic credit card account updater can resolve a large portion of declines before they even happen. When members change credit cards, the card account updater recognizes this change and updates the necessary information. Gains payment processing is one such processor. With 30+ years of experience building the best payment solutions and seamless integration within your software operating system, Gains is built for your success.
To learn more about how Gains can help you save time and retain money, connect with a payments specialist today.