Lately, we have put out a lot of content in regard to the Product-as-a-Service business model. It is about time we put some more emphasis on our product as well. That is why in upcoming weeks we will show a little bit more of the unique features our software offers. This week we will show you one of the features that benefits both the PaaS-provider, but especially their end-user; the self-service center.
When having a product-as-a-service business model, companies tend to have challenges such as; churn rate, manually working on their payments and invoicing or not knowing how to do their taxes. In this week's update we will share some of the benefits of our Self Service Center, and how it can help your company when facing these challenges.
One thing we can assure you: Your customer will never have the feeling they are in another online-environment (back-end).
This is the point of entry for your customer, a place -or portal- for direct overview of their current subscription and possibility for touchpoints with you as a company. After a protected login (which could be two-factor authentication via email or Google authenticator) they will have the option to change their subscription, cancel it, upgrade or downgrade it. This is one of the unique differentiating features of the Firmhouse software platform. Firmhouse has the flexibility built into our platform to allow such changes.
If your proposition allows it, and this option is enabled by you as a company, it could be possible for the end-user to change the contract period. In most cases this means that they can lengthen the contract period so they can get additional benefits. Longer engagement often also means a lower price (per period). Furthermore, companies are able to offer other promotions, like benefits in the form of a loyalty program, for this.
Firstly; you can see your order history. What orders you have already received, and when your next order will be shipped. If there is a part of the order that gets shipped quite often, you want to give the end-user the possibility to accept, cancel or postpone the shipment. Every order can be checked in more detail, as is shown here:
What is interesting here, is that you can see all your payments here, download your invoices, and see where the amount paid is composed of. This is especially interesting if your clients or customers are other businesses (B2B), as they are able to download their invoice directly from this portal.
If your customer wants it, you can also fully automate to send invoices to business clients directly every month. For the B2C market, we would actually advise not to bother individual consumers with sending too many invoices. At best, send an email with the amount that has been charged for that month, as this can vary from month-to-month in your PaaS-proposition. Also, these customers can still download their invoices from the self-service center. This helps in keeping the churn low.
The self-service center allows your customer to look into their current subscription(s). They can see their last delivery and their next delivery. They can opt-out of the next order temporarily, delay it, or accept the next order. Lastly, they can also cancel their subscription, as can be seen here:
Cancelling a subscription is prone to pre-set ‘business-rules’ by your company. Examples of these business rules are: minimal contract periods, deposits, monthly cancellation that requires a 30 days notice, and the next sending cannot thus not be cancelled.
We have included a two-step cancellation process. This means that the payment is only stopped if the product is actually received back (or has been accepted by your logistic partner). This way, you can make sure people will not cancel their subscription without sending back the product (as sometimes happens during holidays). Making sure that the billing cycle is stopped only when the product is actually sent back and is received (by your company or your logistic partner).
The self-service center offers one clear and insightful page for your customers for all client related information. It provides an easy environment to interact with you customers. This page can be fully personalized with your company branding.
Your customer will never have the feeling they are in another online-environment (back-end).
Lastly, the self-service center is available anywhere in the world, just login via your browser. Even if your client just went on a holiday and forgot to cancel their coffee subscription they are able to do so? We got that covered! We got some interesting features to add in the future to the self service center, so keep an eye out on our website.
Want to know more about our product and the possibilities that it brings? Get in contact with us or start your free trial today!
