How VRP's can create exceptional experiences.

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Maybe it does seem a little counter-intuitive; but hear me out. If you’re an owner or employee of a subscription based business then please make it easy for your customers to cancel.  Make it easy for them to cancel or pause and adjust their subscription. Trust us, it can really make for an exceptional experience.

'Make it easy for your customers to cancel'

Traditionally businesses offering subscriptions would make use of card tokenisation and recurring card payments in order to handle a subscription plan. Card tokenisation can help reduce delinquency and cancellations of any recurring payment schedules merchants have live for their customers. This is great from a day-to-day financial perspective. However could this actually be damaging to your brand? Quite possibly.

What I mean by this is, how easy are you making it for your customers to cancel? Are you deliberately making it a convoluted process to stop or pause a subscription? Or have you created a free-trial period which converts into a lengthy paid plan which could have gone unnoticed by a customer? Let’s face it, we’ve all been there. You go to check your bank statement and stumble across a subscription that you’d forgotten about or that trial period had ended and it’s prompted you to cancel. However to cancel, you need to call up a team, jump through some hoops and hope that it cancels.

We live in a world where giving great experiences leads to a truly long term relationship with your customers. Creating real loyalty and evangelism around your brand. So why make it so hard to cancel a subscription. Why not make it as easy as it is to sign-up in the first place.

Variable recurring payments or otherwise referred to, VRP’s, could well be the answer. VRP’s turn the tables, giving the consumer more power and control (instead of the business) in terms of managing subscriptions. VRP's will provide consumers with more transparency, flexibility and control over their subscriptions, in connecting their bank accounts as opposed to their card to facilitate a recurring payment.

The predominant focus of VRP's thus far has been for sweeping payments which allow consumers to regularly move money between their own accounts. However, earlier this year NatWest pioneered the first non-sweeping VRP's with other banks to follow suit.

VRP’s will present an exciting opportunity for brands to built trust and loyalty with their customers. It will be game changing from a consumer perspective. Finally from a FinTech perspective it will catalyze some fantastic innovation within the industry.