Customer Management: #5 Never Let the Customer Slip

When Rahul started Knight's Watch Consulting, his focus was simple: deliver good work and keep clients happy. He offered one-time consulting projects, monthly advisory retainers and usage-based support for growing clients. Business was steady, and customers came in consistently.

But over time, Rahul noticed a troubling pattern.

Customers weren't always leaving because they were unhappy. Some missed payments. Some pause services during the slow period. Others forget to update expired cards. A few cancelled, planning to return, but never did.

His inbox started filling with conversations like:

"Sorry, our card expired. Can we sort this out next week?"

"We didn't realise the payment failed."

"We've cancelled for now, maybe we'll restart later."

Each of these moments felt small on its own. But together, they resulted in lost revenue and opportunities.

Rahul realised something important: Customer retention isn't just about preventing cancellations, it's about responding at the right moment, in the right way.

That's where Zoho Billing helped him spot risks early, reduce friction, and maintain customer relationships, even when payments failed or subscriptions paused.

Retention Mechanisms in Zoho Billing 

Most customers don't leave because they want to. They leave because something gets in the way. It may be a missed payment, short-term budget constraints or lack of follow-up.

Zoho Billing is designed to catch these moments early and turn them into retention opportunities rather than silent drop-offs.

Staying Ahead with Payment Reminders 

One of the simplest yet most effective retention tools is timely communication.

With automated payment reminders, Zoho Billing helps customers stay informed before and after invoice due dates. These reminders gently nudge customers instead of surprising them with service disruptions.

For Rahul, this meant fewer awkward follow-up emails and fewer "We miss this" conversations. Customers appreciated the clarity, and the payment became more predictable.

Reminders help by:

• Reducing unintentional payment delays.

• Setting clear expectations.

• Preventing minor misses from becoming churn triggers.

 Sometimes, a reminder is all it takes to keep a customer on track.

Recovering Payment with Dunning Management 

Not every payment goes through, and that's normal. Card expires. Bank limits change. Payment failed for reasons outside your control. What matters is how you respond when they do. 

​
Zoho Billing's Dunning Management automates follow-ups for failed payments.

​
Instead of a single failed charge leading to cancellation, businesses can set up multiple retries, both for attempts and notifications.

This structured approach helps:

• Recover revenue automatically.

• Give customers time to fix the payment issue.

• Avoid immediate service interruptions. 

In Zoho Billing, you can set up notifications and dunning automation not only for a subscription but also for other subscriptions. You can refer to our earlier post to know more.

​
For Rahul, dunning turned many "about-to-cancel" subscriptions into successfully recovered ones without any manual effort from his team.

Adding a Safety Net with Secondary Payment Method 

Even with reminders and retries, a single payment method can still be a point of failure. Despite the option to notify customers when their cards are expiring, some customers fail to update them on time, which can lead to involuntary churn.

​

Zoho Billing allows customers to add a backup payment method that serves as a fallback if the primary method fails. This small change had a significant impact on Rahul.

​

Instead of subscriptions lapsing, payments often succeeded via the backup method without the customer needing to intervene.

​

This reduces:

• Accidental service interruptions.

• Frustration caused by an expired card.

• Revenue loss due to avoidable failure.

 Sometimes, retention is just about removing friction that customers didn't even realise existed.

Using Free Plan as a Retention Safety Net 

In the previous post, we explored how a Free plan helps manage trials and failed payments. From a retention perspective, it plays a different role. Instead of cancelling a subscription outright when all payment attempt fails, Zoho Billing allows businesses to move customers to a limited-access Free Plan.

For Rahul, this changes the tone of difficult moments:

• Customers weren't locked out suddenly.

• Access was reduced, not removed.

• The relationship stayed alive.

Customers could continue engaging at a basic level and upgrade back when ready. This approach preserved goodwill and created more chances for recovery.

Identifying Risk Early  with Reports

Retention isn't just reactive; it's proactive. Zoho Billing provides reports that help businesses spot trouble before customers disappear.

Under Risk Report 

The Under Risk Report highlights customers at risk of churn due to payment failures or delayed renewals. Instead of discovering churn after it happened, Rahul's team could now reach out early with context.

"We noticed there were a few payment issues. Can we help?"

This early awareness made conversations more supportive and less transactional.

Lost Opportunities Report 

Not every lost customer is gone forever. The Lost Opportunities Report provides visibility into subscriptions for which the payment failed on the first attempt. For Rahul, this became a list of customers worth revisiting.

Some came back months later, Others needed a different plan or pricing model. Having this visibility turned past losses into future conversations.

This report, along with Abandon Cart Tracking, provides businesses offering both self- and sales-driven onboarding with a clear understanding of where and when a customer slips out.

Making It Easy to Come Back with Reactivations 

One of the biggest retention wins came from subscription reactivation. In-term reactivation, as explained in our previous post, makes a significant difference in your customer offering. Customers who cancelled earlier often return with:

"Can we restart from where we left off?

With Zoho Billing, Rahul could:

• Reactivate subscriptions mid-term

• Resume without creating a new invoice.

• Keep the original billing cycle intact.

Even better, reactivation could be enabled directly in the Customer Portal, allowing customers to resume services on their own without emails, calls, or delays.

This removed friction at the exact moment when customers were ready to return.

What Retention Strategies Does to Business? 

Retention is a process and not a single feature. Over time, Rahul learned that customers don't slip away all at once. They drift away through small, preventable moments.

Zoho Billing addresses those moments by:

• Reminding customers before issues arise.

• Recovering failed payments automatically.

• Offering a flexible fallback instead of a hard stop.

• Highlighting risk early through reporting

• Making it easy for returning customers.

 Each of these features works together to ensure customers don't slip away.

Zoho Billing helps businesses build these safety nets into their billing operations, ensuring minor disruptions don't become permanent losses. By staying proactive, flexible, and customer-friendly, companies can turn potential churn into lasting relationships and revenue. 

Up Next: Common Mistakes in Customer Handling

 

• Topic Participants

• Hari Hara Sudhan. S

  

• Sticky Posts

• Community Learning Series | Digest #5 — September 2020

  Dear customers, We're happy to bring you the September edition of our #CommunityDigest! Keep track of your subscription KPIs right from your smartphone: Last month, we enhanced our Android mobile app to help our customers get daily updates on their business health. We got to know from a lot of customers that this has made their job much more easier because they no longer have to keep a reminder to manually check on the previous day's revenue or activations. If you have not downloaded it yet, here's

• Community Learning Series | Digest #4 - August 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. I'm happy to bring you the fourth edition of our #CommunityDigest with some brand-new updates from us. 1. Daily Business Updates (for Android users) The Zoho Subscriptions Android app has got a cool new update: You can now get a push notification to your smartphone that lets you know how many activations and cancellations have taken place, and what's the net revenue for the previous day. The best part is, you can tell the app when exactly you

• Community Learning Series | Digest #3 - July 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. We're glad to bring you the July edition of our #CommunityDigest. New community members can view our previous newsletters here. This time, we have two major updates and three interesting topics for you: 1. Zoho Subscriptions Developer Community Since the inception of Zoho Subscriptions, our team believed that the recurring billing platform we provide should be able to offer an extensive API library that empowers businesses to automate most

• Introducing: Community Learning Series | Digest #1 - May 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you are staying safe and healthy. Helping businesses manage their customer subscriptions more efficiently has always been, and always will be, our goal at Zoho Subscriptions. We strongly believe this is possible if we grow together as a community and share what we know with each other. To nurture this shared learning experience, here is our brand-new Community Learning Series! ​ Welcome to the first edition of our digest! Each edition of our community digest includes guides

• Recent Topics

• Syncing with Google calendar, Tasks and Events

  Is it possible to sync Zoho CRM calendar, task and events with Google Calendar's tasks and events. With the increasing adoption by many major tool suppliers to sync seamlessly with Google's offerings (for instance I use the excellent Any.do task planning

• CRM x WorkDrive: We're rolling out the WorkDrive-powered file storage experience for existing users

  Release plan: Gradual rollout to customers without file storage add-ons, in this order: 1. Standalone CRM 2. CRM Plus and Zoho One DCs: All | Editions: All Available now for: - Standalone CRM accounts in Free and Standard editions without file storage

• How do I associate pricebooks to a customer?

  I setup a few pricebooks, that worked fine. But now the only thing I can do with it, when I enter a quote or sales order, I can select which pricebook to use, but I have to do this product by product every time I add one. Is there a way to connect a pricebook

• FOLDER DISAPPEARED

  Hello Zoho Community. I recently found a problem with no explanation: a folder in Zoho Analytics just disappeared, but the tables and SQL sentences still existed, the folder was not deleted. The solution for me in this case was to create a new folder,

• Zoho Tracking Image location

  So we've been having an issue with tracking email opens. Specifically in Gmail. Our emails are not that long either, maybe 4 sections of image/250 characters of text/button per section.  But all my test accounts I used via Gmail we're showing opens. But then come to find out the tracking image is at the very bottom of the email. So If the message is clipped (It always just clips our social icons on the bottom) and the user doesn't click the show more button it never tracks the open.  Looking at other

• New to automation - please help

  Hi there! We are new to automations in Zoho. We built out one automation campaign and it seems to be firing off for some people but others not. Please advise what's the best practice or if anything we should tweak. Thank you so much!

• Unable to Create Zoho Booking via the Book Appointment API

  Its giving the below error {     "response": {         "errormessage": "Error setting value for the variable:customer_details\n null",         "status": "Error"     } } Request: POST Url: https://www.zohoapis.in/bookings/v1/json/appointment attached Zoho-oauthtoken

• Task Details on task template

  When creating a task template in settings that task details seem to be missing. Is it not possible to set the details of a task, such as the priority, type, reminder settings, and custom field values?

• Building Toppings #3 -Testing and publishing Bigin toppings

  Hey Biginners! In previous forum posts, we discussed what a Bigin topping is and explored the Bigin Developer Console's features. In this post, we're going to create a topping from scratch and discuss how to test and publish it. Our topping will automate

• markdown files?

  How can I import a markdown file into a note?

• Mail to Zoho Notebook

  In the Instuctiosn I faound as email add@notebook.app In my account I see add@eu.notebook.app What is correct please

• Auto-Invite Users to Portals in Zoho CRM based on Conditions

  Hello Everyone, You can now automate portal invitations in Zoho CRM with the new Auto-Invite users feature in Portal management. No more manually enabling portal access one by one. With this enhancement, you can automatically send invites for users to

• Growth You can Count On: Zoho Billing's 2025 Journey

  As we wrap up 2025, we’re reflecting on a year rooted in steady progress and meaningful growth for Zoho Billing. Every enhancement we have introduced was built to support scalable and reliable billing growth for your business. From launching the Enterprise

• Automating Employee Birthday Notifications in Zoho Cliq

  Have you ever missed a birthday and felt like the office Grinch? Fear not, the Cliq Developer Platform has got your back! With Zoho Cliq's Schedulers, you can be the office party-cipant who never forgets a single cake, balloon, or awkward rendition of

• Need help with creating workflow with Bigin and Clickup

  Can you please help me with this? I am trying to create a workflow in Zoho Flow wherein a bigin Pipeline deal moves to Decision Closing, it will create a task and subtasks in Clickup, under the condition/filter that the Deal name contains the word Social

• [Webinar] Automate generation of wills, trusts, POAs, and other estate planning documents with Zoho Writer

  Managing the lifecycle of the estate planning documents such as wills, trusts, and POAs, from client intake to final storage, can be complex and time-consuming. Join our live webinar to learn how Zoho Writer transforms this process by automating document

• Create / Update Rule in TeamInbox when record is updated in ZohoCRM using flow?

  I'm currently evaluating options and trying to work out if the possible scenario is possible; If a record in ZohoCRM is updated, take 2 of the fields from that - lets call them 'OrderRef' and 'OrderTo'. Using flow, if a record is added or updated, add

• Plans to allow more columns of monitoring, and monitoring not only your own channels?

  Are their any plans to allow more columns of monitoring, and monitoring not only your own channels? Here's why - I'm sure I'm not alone in that we sell other brands products, so not only am I interested in my own brand social channels, but also the social

• Unwrapping the best practices for the Zoho Desk mobile app: Part 1

  In focus: Empowering the field and frontline customer support representatives Imagine having to carry your computer everywhere to respond to customers, handle escalations, and update your process. This series presents you with efficient tips to handle

• dealing with post dated cheques

  Hi, can you help me please the best way to deal with this We sell an item of three months duration that is paid for with post dated cheques in monthly stages example - item is sold £3000 Cheque 1 is for £1000 due at time of sale (say Sept) cheque 2 is dated 25th of next month (Oct) cheque 3 is dated 25th of next month +1 (Nov) Now, with invoice number one it's simple - i send a standard invoice as usual But with the other two here's what i want zoho to do next month i want it to send an invoice on

• Is there a way to sell in a practical method multiple subscriptions of the same product? i.e. domain names

  In evaluating Zoho Billing, a hurdle to adopting it is that Zoho Billing does not seem designed to support businesses that sell multiple subscriptions of the same product. In our case, we need to sell and manage several domain names per client. Am I right

• Paid Support Plans with Automated Billing

  We (like many others, I'm sure) are designing or have paid support plans. Our design involves a given number of support hours in each plan. Here are my questions: 1) Are there any plans to add time-based plans in the Zoho Desk Support Plans feature? The

• Bug Report: "Name A-Z" sorting fails when Note titles start with an Emoji

  Hello, I recently migrated from Evernote (~2600 notes across 23 notebooks). I use emojis at the start of my note titles for visual organization. The Issue: When I set the view to Sort by: Name (A to Z), the sorting logic breaks for any note starting with

• Copy & Paste not working

  I could create and save 10 new documents but when I go to copy and paste content (just text) into them, only 1 of 10 would save the content. It would appear to save the content but when I go back into the documents, they are empty.

• editing/applying online payments

  We have customers who pay part or all of an invoice and then cancel their service and want the payment as a credit to future work. It would be ideal if we could make it an excess payment and then void the invoice. I can't make it an excess payment because

• Contacts per department

  Hello, Is it possible to limit Contacts to a Department? Thanks

• This site can’t be reached mail.zoho.com took too long to respond

  In my office at any system, we couldnt able to login zoho email. it shows " This site can’t be reached mail.zoho.com took too long to respond". please fix it soon.

• Can send email from zoho mail, but can't receive any.

  Hi, My domain is sattvameditationresort.com. I've updated MX records with those of Zoho. But i can't send any mails to this email id from gmail. I have checked the MX status with MXTOOLS, its showing the correct entry either. The error is as shown below:

• My domain did not activate

  Hi, my domain (apsaindustrial.com.ar) did not activate, and the phone verification message never arrived. Please would you solve this problem? Thanks.

• Host not found?

  Howdy! So i'm trying to add my custom domain for with the mail server. I have 100% control of my DNS and have tried every single option (TXT, CNAME, and even HTML) multiple times, ensuring i did it properly, to no luck. I get the same error message every

• Emails are going to notification folder and not in inbox

  emails are going to notification folder and not into inbox

• Error AS101 when adding new email alias

  Hi, I am trying to add apple@(mydomain).com The error AS101 is shown while I try to add the alias.

• Report on opportunities showing only the last note added.

  Hi I need to create a report that shows the most recent note added to each opportunity. This is so management can see what the latest update is according to the assigned salesperson. One workaround is to use the status field but this implies added manual work and mistakes as the salesperson would have to copy the existing status to a note before adding the latest status... otherwise the activity history would be lost. My current workaround is a report on Notes with Opportunities as the related module.

• Please add Zelle as an online payment option

  Hello, I would like to request Zelle be added to the online payment service providers for Zoho Invoice. Considering how ubiquitous Zelle has become as a way to pay people via the major banking institutions, I feel like many freelancers would benefit from

• This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

  Hello, Just signed up to ZOHO on a friend's recommendation. Got the TXT part (verified my domain), but whenever I try to add ANY user, I get the error: This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details I have emailed as well and writing here as well because when I searched, I saw many people faced the same issue and instead of email, they got a faster response here. My domain is: raisingreaderspk . com Hope this can be resolved.  Thank you

• Getting Project Template List using the REST API

  I am trying to confirm that I can use the REST API to create a project using a project template. The API documentation indicates this is possible by providing the Template ID, but it is not clear at all how to get a list of available Project Templates

• How to display the CONTACT ID in the Contact page

  Hi, I've seen this conversation below and it is exactly the same question I'm raising now, but unfortunately the last message is not solved https://help.zoho.com/portal/community/topic/show-contact-id-while-editing-contact-form I need to show the ContactId and I don't know how to do this. The last message included in the conversaton shows the way but not it is not completed. "I am sorry by default we do not have the option to show the record ID for the contacts in the field in a record. When you

• How to change margins in templates

  Hi, I'm new to Zoho Campaigns, and am trying to figure out how to adjust the margins within an email template.  The default margins make the text go all the way to the edges of the page.  Please advise.

• Create Canvas list view templates from images powered by Zia

  Currently available for all paid editions of Zoho CRM in the US, EU, IN, JP & CN DCs. Designing a personalized CRM interface just got even easier. In today’s fast-evolving digital landscape, AI is transforming the way we work by automating complex tasks

• Painfully Slow Zoho mail

  Since yesterday Zoho Mail seems to have starting functioning very slowly and having a few bugs. It's slow to open mails, slow to send, slow to change between email accounts. Sometimes clicking on a particular folder (eg Sent folder) stops working and

• Next Page