How to maintain steady cash flow during the COVID-19 crisis using Zoho Subscriptions
Dear customers,
I hope this finds you and your loved ones in good health.
We're all witnessing the effect that COVID-19 is having on businesses throughout the world. As consumers try to conserve their own resources, businesses can expect to receive more cancellation requests than usual.
Here are some useful tips to help you be flexible and keep your customer base:
1. Communicate candidly and clearly with your customers:
During this period, transparent communication with customers is a necessity. A lot of businesses have started displaying messages on their home pages, explaining their BCP (Business Continuity Process) and other important announcements they want to convey to their customers.
As an additional means of communication, you can use the banner message in the customer portal of Zoho Subscriptions. The banner message is visible in the home page of the portal, so it can help get the customer's attention quickly. You can set up this message under Settings > Preferences > Branding > Portal settings.
2. Put renewals on a temporary hold:
i) Pause and resume subscriptions
It's a good idea to provide your customers the option to freeze their subscriptions temporarily, rather than canceling them altogether. By giving them an option to pause their subscriptions, you are letting your customers know that they can rely on you when it's time to resume. It's also a good way to encourage customers to stick with you for their next purchase instead of switching vendors.
Here's how you can pause a subscription in Zoho Subscriptions:
ii) Extend the billing date:
Even customers who love your service may have difficulty paying for it on time right now. One way to keep these customers from canceling is to push back the date for their next subscription payment. By offering uninterrupted service and a little more time to pay, you're giving them a good reason to remain loyal. To do this, just update the subscription's Next Billing Date in Zoho Subscriptions and they won't be charged until the new date.
3. Be approachable:
As a standard business practice, you might have set up automatic payment reminders in Zoho Subscriptions to go out on specific days before or after the invoice due date. However, given the current circumstances, you can definitely expect delays in payment.
Since you have control over the content that goes out in these reminder emails, think about rephrasing it to let your customers know that if they need any assistance, they can reach out to you by phone or email. This way, your finance team doesn't have to wait and wonder whether the customer will make their payment or not, or spend time sending extra emails. You can tweak your reminder email content under Settings > Reminders.
By making it easy for your customers to approach you and treating them on a case-by-case basis, you can actually bring down the number of unpaid transactions.
4. Offer credits:
Another way to earn the customer's goodwill is to create special offers to assist them. For instance, Zoho's Emergency Subscription Assistance Program (ESAP) offers subscription credits to businesses in need. If you want to adopt a similar practice for your business, you can create credit notes in Zoho Subscriptions and enable the Redeem Credit Notes option so that it is automatically applied for the upcoming renewal.
5. Don't auto-cancel services upon non-payment:
Most subscription businesses have automated their billing process in such a way that if the customer doesn't pay, the subscription is automatically canceled. While this is a good practice most of the time, you might want to adopt a flexible approach during this crisis.
Instead of letting the subscriptions be canceled automatically, you can monitor the Under Risk report in Zoho Subscriptions, and contact those customers to suggest alternate payment arrangements for your services.
6. Know why your customers leave:
During difficult times, businesses and customers alike aim to cut costs and reduce their spending. If your customers are canceling right now, make sure you give them a chance to say why they're leaving. You might be able to retain them by offering some flexibility, or it may be best to reach out to them later and see if they're ready to come back. Even if you can't keep them as a customer, knowing why they left still helps you improve your service going forward.
In Zoho Subscriptions, you have the option to make the Cancelation Reason field mandatory. You can configure this under Settings > Preferences > Subscription > Cancellation Preferences.
Though some of these tips might have a negative effect on your finances temporarily, they can gain you long-term benefits like customer loyalty and customer retention, which will help your business recover more easily.
Did you find these tips useful? Can you think of some other best practices that businesses can use to get through difficult times? Let us know in the comments.
Note from Zoho: If you need any assistance regarding Zoho Subscriptions, our support team is available 24 hours a day, Monday-Friday. You can also reach out to us through email (support@zohosubscriptions.com) or phone.
Because Zoho recognizes that our own customers may be facing difficult times right now, we have rolled out an Emergency Subscription Assistance Program (ESAP) to help small businesses through this crisis. Learn more about this program.
Take care and stay safe! We'll get through this storm together.
Regards,
Harikrishna
Customer Relations | Zoho Finance
Access your files securely from anywhere
New to Zoho Recruit?
Zoho Developer Community
New to Zoho LandingPage?
Zoho LandingPage Resources
New to Zoho Survey?
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
New to Bigin?
Topic Participants
Harikrishna
Peter Jordan
ar
Sticky Posts
Introducing Invoice Consolidation for Offline Subscriptions
Hello Folks, Glad to announce the feature of Invoice Consolidation for Offline Subscriptions. If you are having multiple subscriptions for your customers, now, you can send a single consolidated invoice for all the Offline Subscriptions that are getting renewed on the same date. Advantage? Customers will be receiving single invoice instead of multiple invoices upon renewal. Also reduces your efforts in follow-up with your customers for payment collections. For Example: If Customer has SubscriptionNew feature: Create back-dated subscriptions
Hello from the Zoho Subscriptions team. :) We’re happy to announce that today marks the launch of a much-awaited feature: creating back-dated subscriptions! From here on out, whenever you create a new subscription with an activation date that is earlier than the present date, you’ll no longer get an error. Instead, you'll be creating a back-dated subscription. This means that the subscription started at that earlier point in time. The next billing date will be calculated automatically based onAnnouncement Regarding Notification Emails
Hello Everyone! This announcement is regarding the admin notification emails which you've been receiving from the email address "support@zohosubscriptions.com". From the 1st of October, 06:00 GMT, the emails with the following subjects will be sent from "no-reply@zohosubscriptions.com". Unable to send invoice for the profile - {profile_name} Unable to process auto payments. If you have set up any filters or workflow in your email account, please add "no-reply@zohosubscriptions.com” and “support@zohosubscriptions.com”Zoho Subscriptions plugin for WordPress
Zoho Subscriptions plugin for WordPress allows you to easily embed your plan specific checkout page in an iframe with just a few mouse clicks and without a single line of code. How can WordPress Zoho Subscriptions Plugin boost your productivity? It's now easier to embed Zoho Subscriptions checkout page in your WordPress site. Forget the old method of logging in to Zoho Subscriptions, copying a URL and scripting to make adjustments. All this can be done automatically through this plugin. A great timeIndian GST organisation Migration Guide
With respect to the new GST regime releasing on July 1, 2017in India, Zoho Subscriptions Indian edition is also gearing up to make your business GST Ready. This article focuses on how to get your existing organisation in Zoho Subscriptions to migrate to the new GST regime. Note: Any organisation created on or after July 1, 2017 will already be GST ready. You wouldn't have to migrate your organisation. Migrating your existing organisation to support GST To migrate your existing organisation to
New to Zoho TeamInbox?
Zoho TeamInbox Resources
Zoho CRM Plus Resources
Zoho Books Resources
Zoho Subscriptions Resources
Zoho Projects Resources
Zoho Sprints Resources
Qntrl Resources
Zoho Creator Resources
Zoho CRM Resources
Design. Discuss. Deliver.
Zoho Show Resources
Get Started. Write Away!
Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.
Zoho CRM コンテンツ
-
オンラインヘルプ
-
Webセミナー
-
機能活用動画
-
よくある質問
-
Ebook
-
-
Zoho Campaigns
- Zoho サービスのWebセミナー
その他のサービス コンテンツ
Nederlandse Hulpbronnen
ご検討中の方
Recent Topics
At transaction level Discounts for Zoho books UAE version
Dear Team, Please add transaction level Discounts for Zoho books UAE version. I have been requesting Zoho team past 3 years, Transaction level Discounts is a mandatory option required for our business needs. Zoho books Indian version has the option thenWhere do Review Questions appear on the Performance Assessment?
Hi, I want to create a Performance Assessment including only compentencies with a multiple-choice format, and a final open-text question after the competencies asking for justification of the previous objective questions. Can Review questions work forExit details not linked on employee profile
Dear Team, The exit details that were filled in are not appearing in the employee's profile, and it seems the data is missing entirely. Please advise on how to proceed. Regards, PreetikaClient Script: Any plans to add support for multi-select field with onChange
Client Script is fantastic and the documentation lists multiselect form fields as unsupported. Just wondering if there are any plans to make this a supported field. https://www.zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/client-script/client-script-events.html 2. FieldVersioning of Quotes and Invoices
Would be nice if Zoho Invoice would offer the feature of saving all versions of a quote or invoice during the process - so if quotes or invoices get changed over time - a version of the old ones exist and can be reviewed and reactivated if necessary ... ;)Banking - User Roles - Access To Single Bank Account
Hi, We have different locations with each location having a specific bank account for Expenses/Etc... Can you please confirm on whether it's possible to give a user (non accountant), specific access to only a single bank account as opposed to all accountsDoes Zoho US Payroll now support employees in multiple states?
Does Zoho US now support having employees in multiple US states? I looked at the site and can't find and of the restrictions on multiple states anywhere.Help! Unable to send message
Help! Unable to send message I have this email sales<at>teadvancehydraulics<dot>com, but I couldn't send outgoing email. (Reason:554 5.1.8 Email Outgoing Blocked.) Can you please help?CRM Mail merge issues
How do you configure the page on mail merge, from ZCRM??. I have written a template and structured the filters. the print preview is on one page. I merge the document. The merge reformats and then the document formatting moves higher and higher until by page 5 you have two half letters!!! Very frustrating. Does anyone know if I need to insert a page break or how to correct /format this so it doesn't happen?? Help. LNew notecards not syncing across devices
Hello. I just noticed this problem happen recently. A new note being created on one device is not appearing on a different device, even though they're supposed to be synced with each other through setting it up on your account. I don't know if there'sPower of Automation :: Auto update a custom field based on Parallel transition under Blueprint
Hello Everyone, A custom function is a software code that can be used to automate a process and this allows you to automate a notification, call a webhook, or perform logic immediately after a workflow rule is triggered. This feature helps to automatePush error with Zoho Books and Zoho CRM
I have successfully linked Books and CRM but I have some push errors with the following message: "The customer associated to this record is not linked to module chosen in the current contact sync configuration." I am unable to work this out, could you help please.Sales Tax Rates
Why is the Tax Customization feature limited to 2 decimal points? This issue has been mentioned several times over the last few years but it has not been changed. From a programming stand point, this should be relatively easy. Third decimal point capabilitiesFeature Request: Ability to copy notecards to Windows desktop
Hello, Please consider adding the ability to copy notecards to Windows desktop. Thanks!Add RSS Feed Feature to Zoho Desk Communities and Knowledge Base
It would be very useful to be able to get updates on content which is relevant to me from Zoho Desk Communities through RSS and also push my own Zoho Desk Community content to other platforms through RSS.Do Individual Forums within Categories, in Desk Community, Produce Their Own RSS Feed?
Do Individual Forums within Categories, in Desk Community, Produce Their Own RSS Feed? If not, can anyone share a work-around that could help me get an RSS feed for individual category forums?Add customer to account based on domain name.
I generate reports based on a the account field, i.e. companyX. In GoToAssist, my last provider, there was an option to automatically assign new ticket creators to a company (or account) based on their domain name. So for example, if a new employee createsZoho One Apps is not populating once clicked
Hi Support, The Apps Menu button (corner right next to my profile) is not loading. It keeps flashing but nothing is showing up. When I type quick in the search bar to locate quickbooks, it continues to flash with no apps shown. ThanksTablet Pencil + Fillable Form
Hi There, I just started using Zoho Writer Forms for our team on iOS. I noticed that some functions support 'scribble' or tablet pens and some do not. Is there a function I am missing where any text field can support 'scribble' or handwriting/printingCRM API v2 AdWords GCLID Parameter
Hi, I'm using AdWords Integration with Zoho CRM using a third party webform and can't manage to insert the "gclid" parameter via Zoho CRM API Leads endpoint (version 2). I already checked the following articles: 1. https://www.zoho.com/crm/help/google-adwords/configure.html#Third_Party 2. https://www.zoho.com/crm/help/api-diff/ Form submission works fine. On server side the gclid is correctly included in API request. The Lead is created successfully. All fields (system and custom) are populated correctlyZoho Writer can be slow to load sometimes
Hello! I've noticed that whenever I restart my web browser (Firefox 2) and try to open Zoho Writer, it always shows the login screen first, even if I have an URL direct to the writing interface itself. I don't recall it doing this in an older version, so why does it happen now? Also, sometimes when starting Zoho Writer, it gets stuck: I see the word "Loading..." come up and the page half-extends but never fully loads. I have to refresh the page totally in order to get it to work properly, but doingMass email processes
Hello, I'm looking to send about 7k emails out. I have them in CSV format with most being people I have previously communicated with. My questions are: * What is the process for using Zoho to send this group of emails out utilizing Microsoft 365 ? I'mZoho WorkDrive 5.0 : d’un outil vers une solution intelligente de gestion de documents
Dans un monde de plus en plus orienté vers les données, les entreprises doivent non seulement gérer une masse croissante de données non structurées, mais aussi en extraire des informations stratégiques. L’intelligence de contenu répond à ce besoin enWeekly Tips: Avoid any email mishaps using Zoho Mail's Email Recall
Let's say you have just sent an important email to a recipient with an important attachment. Moments after hitting send, you realize the attachment is outdated and missing some critical updates. Sending another corrected version of the email without addressingMessaging
Whenever i send a mail to someone, it come with the my name of the company, instead of the name of my company.Can't receive emails. MX Records are good apparently.
Hello, For the past couple of days I have been able to send but unable to receive email through Zoho Webmail. I went into Admin Console and it says: MX Records are configured correctly and Your Domains MX Records are pointed to Zoho. Could you pleaseHow can I customize my sales pipeline in Zoho.com CRM ?
Hi to all intelligent community members I’m Namrata Hinduja Geneva, Switzerland, new member in Zoho.com and in this community. Please resolve my query - How can I customize my sales pipeline in Zoho.com CRM to track the progress of deals more effectively?Error when adding phone number
Hi Team, I'm getting an error when trying to authenticate using my phone, please see image attached. thanks, JoseZoho Projects iOS app update: Revamp of toast message and an option to view the whiteboard images
Hello everyone! In the most recent Zoho Projects app update, we have brought in support for the following features: 1. Toast message revamp: We have enhanced the toast message banners to a bolder interface. You will now be updated on the progress of uploadsSend a new invoice data from Books to local certified solution via API json due local compliance
Greetings, I hope you are doing well and staying safe. Due to local compliance regulations, I am required to issue invoices exclusively using locally certified software, which Zoho Books is not. However, we would like to continue using Zoho Books, soHow to Populate the Amount field of a Deal by subform's aggregate data
https://help.zoho.com/portal/community/topic/custom-function-25-%c2%a0populate-the-amount-field-of-a-deal-by-calculating-the-number-of-related-products-and-its-unit-price I'm trying to do an Deal amount update like this guide but I use a subform to calculate the product amount and price instead. Please help me writing the code. regardsUnblocking Outgoing Emails on exports@carelyexport.com – Urgent Assistance Needed
We are a newly established export-import startup operating under the business name Carely Export, and we are currently using Zoho Mail for our business communications. However, we are experiencing an issue where our outgoing emails are being blocked,Property Management: Creating Amazing Appointment Scheduling Sites
Sometimes a property management company can be very busy where even some time and effort saved can make a difference in a world. If you are a property manager, would you not like it if you could spend the wasted time managing appointments to get your job done? This is where getting a booking appointment platform lets you improve efficiency and save time. The enticing scheduling appointment platform can also help get more clients in than normal. It will help you contend with other companies that haveIP BLACKLISTED UCEPROTECTL3
Your IP 136.143.188.56 was NOT directly involved in aabuse, but has a bad neighborhood. Other customers within this range did not care about their security and got hacked, started spamming, or were even attacking others, while your provider has possiblyAdding Public Holidays to the Calendar
Hi, How do you add a public holiday to the calendar, we are closed on public holidays but if someone has requested holidays over that time how do we avoid the day being deducted as this is already a paid holiday?Your inbox called; it wants less clutter
Inbox full of ghosts? Let Auto-Close do the haunting. Ever stared at your support inbox wondering why half the chats are just… sitting there? No reply, no closure, just hanging like unread messages from a advertising company. Let’s fix that. With Auto-Close,an issue in Zoho CRM where the workflow rule is not triggering
H I’m currently facing an issue in Zoho CRM where the workflow rule is not triggering when a new lead is created through a webform. I’ve double-checked the criteria and field updates, everything seems fine but it still doesn’t fire. Has anyone faced thisFeature Request: Mass update selected Contacts to Accounts
I can't believe this isn't an ability already. It's a quick fix that would save hours of manual entry time. This looks like it had been requested 3-4 years ago with no answers from staff! Please add all contact fields into the "mass update" menu. YouHow to add the other customer to the list of customers
So I have a list of customers with the option of other. So when I select other and the new customer, how to get to it be saved to that list in creator.Automate and Personalize Engagement for Campaign Leads Using Zoho SalesIQ Chatbots
Hi everyone! In our last post, we explored how to identify, qualify, and nurture leads using SalesIQ Triggers and Zoho Campaigns integration. To recap, once visitors meet your criteria, you can add them to a Campaigns mailing list with Triggers. WhenNext Page