Effectively managing subscribers is essential for businesses aiming to build and sustain strong customer relationships, improve overall subscriber satisfaction, and create personalized experiences. By understanding subscriber needs and preferences, you can tailor communications, offer targeted promotions, and foster loyalty, ultimately driving sustainable growth and long-term success. Easier said than done? Not necessarily!
A subscription management system can be your greatest ally, helping you streamline billing processes, manage customer subscriptions effortlessly, and reduce churn rates with greater efficiency.
In this comprehensive guide, we cover:
- What is a subscriber management system (SMS)
- Benefits of using subscriber management systems for digital subscription businesses
- The 4 types of subscriber management systems
- Key considerations when choosing a subscriber management solution
- SMS implementation challenges you may face
- How Cleeng covers all aspects of subscriber management for online subscription companies
What is a subscriber management system (SMS)?
A subscriber management system is software designed to efficiently manage every stage of the subscriber lifecycle, from onboarding and billing to retention and churn prevention. These systems automate subscription processes such as payments, renewals, and cancellations, while also simplifying customer interactions by providing tools for support and communication.
Advanced subscriber management systems go beyond basic functions by offering robust analytics and reporting features. These provide valuable insights into subscriber behavior, preferences, and trends, enabling businesses to personalize offerings, improve customer satisfaction, and reduce churn. Some systems even include marketing automation capabilities, helping businesses target the right audience with tailored campaigns.
Benefits of using subscriber management systems for D2C subscription businesses
Think of it this way: subscription management systems are to digital subscription companies what CRMs have been to sales and marketing—a total game-changer for creating the ultimate subscriber experience.
Subscriber management systems are revolutionizing how D2C subscription businesses thrive. They’re not just about keeping things running—they’re about running smarter. These tools help streamline operations, reduce churn, and build lasting customer relationships. By centralizing data and automating workflows, they make scaling subscription models effortless and efficient. Ready to see how they can transform your business? Let’s dive into the key benefits they bring to the table.
1. Streamlined subscription management process
Subscription management systems streamline tedious yet essential tasks like billing, invoicing, renewals, and cancellations. By automating these processes, they free up valuable time for online subscription teams to focus on higher-impact activities, such as analyzing customer data, personalizing campaigns, and optimizing campaigns to boost customer retention.
2. Get insights to enhance customer experience and satisfaction
The best OTT teams are proactive.
Growth and proactivity don’t come from luck and gut feelings. They come from data and advanced insights.
The best subscriber management systems will collect and analyze subscriber data for you. They should give you access to valuable insights to create tailored acquisition or retention strategies, upsell opportunities, or push personalized recommendations.
3. Increase revenue and business growth opportunities
Time is money.
If you and your team can spend less time aggregating data and more time acting on it, you’ll create more value for the business and potentially gain a serious advantage over the competition.
The 4 types of subscriber management systems
Subscriber management platforms come in various forms to address different needs. While each system has its unique features, they can be categorized into four main types:
End-to-end subscriber management systems
These comprehensive platforms are ideal for growing digital subscription businesses since they allow full subscriber lifecycle management–from acquisition to retention.
They integrate seamlessly with other tools and offer an array of features, including customer support, analytics, and billing services. For online subscription brands seeking an all-in-one solution, end-to-end systems provide the tools needed to scale effectively.
Cleeng's SRM® suite is a comprehensive subscription management system that was created with D2C digital products in mind.
Modular subscriber management systems
Modular SMS platforms offer the most customization options and flexibility for subscription businesses. With their modular design, these platforms can be tailored to meet specific business needs. However, with flexibility comes complexity.
While teams benefit from a highly personalized solution, modular systems often involve longer implementation times and require ongoing support from technical teams. Even minor changes or updates to workflows might demand intervention to ensure new features work harmoniously with existing ones.
Partial subscriber management systems
Partial systems focus on a narrow set of subscriber management functions, covering only the essentials. While they may be simpler to use, their limited scope often excludes key features such as customer retention dashboards, tools for identifying at-risk subscribers, or customer support capabilities. These systems are best suited for businesses with minimal management needs.
Proprietary subscriber management systems
For businesses seeking full control over their platform, proprietary systems offer maximum customization and advanced functionality. Built to address specific requirements, they provide flexibility unmatched by off-the-shelf solutions. However, proprietary systems often become costly over time due to the ongoing need for maintenance, updates, and security enhancements, turning them into long-term investments that require careful consideration.
Key considerations when choosing a subscriber management solution
Selecting a subscriber management solution (SMS) isn’t a decision to be taken lightly. These systems are deeply integrated into your tech stack and require significant time and effort to implement, making them long-term investments rather than tools you can easily switch out.
For D2C companies, the choice of SMS can have a profound and lasting impact on business performance—either driving growth or creating operational challenges for years to come.
That’s why it’s crucial to choose a solution that not only meets your current requirements but also scales seamlessly with your future needs.
To help you make an informed decision, here are the key factors to consider when evaluating your options.
Scalability and flexibility to meet future needs
How well can the platform support your growth? As your business grows, the demands on your system will increase, so it’s crucial to choose a platform that can scale seamlessly without compromising performance. Additionally, ensure the system is flexible enough to adapt to changing business requirements, such as new features, integrations, or evolving workflows, so it can continue to meet your needs over time.
Integration with other business applications and systems
How well does the solution align with your current tech stack and workflows? Prioritize tools that offer seamless integration with CRM, billing, and analytics platforms to build a unified, efficient infrastructure. Without proper integration, you risk adding unnecessary complexity, which can lead to increased costs and operational inefficiencies.
Ease of use and user interface
Your SMS solution will be a tool you interact with frequently, so it’s essential to feel comfortable using it.
No matter how many features it offers, a SaaS platform is only as effective as your ability to navigate it. If you and your team can’t use the system independently, it’s not the right fit.
Prioritize solutions with a clean, intuitive interface that makes adoption seamless for employees and minimizes the need for extensive training.
Churn management features
With churn and subscriber volatility rapidly declining in the SVOD industry, your subscription management platform must prioritize subscriber retention. The ideal platform should not only help you retain subscribers but also provide insights into why they churn. Additionally, it should equip you with tools to run highly targeted retention campaigns, ensuring long-term customer loyalty.
Security and data privacy measures
Given the sensitive nature of customer data handled by subscriber management platforms, robust security protocols and compliance with data protection regulations are non-negotiable. Ensuring your platform adheres to these standards is crucial for safeguarding subscriber trust.
Challenges you may face while implementing subscriber management software
Implementing a new subscription management system (SMS) can be a game-changer for your streaming company, but it’s not without challenges. Resistance to change is a common hurdle—while you may see the benefits, your team might not be as excited. To overcome this, communicate the advantages clearly and involve employees in the decision-making process. Another challenge lies in data migration and system integration. Not all systems are compatible, so ensuring smooth data transfer and seamless integration is crucial to avoid inconsistencies and disruptions. It’s worth noting that not all SMS solutions are equal when it comes to ease of implementation. For example, Cleeng’s implementation for the NFL was completed in just 11 weeks!
By now, you’ve mastered the fundamentals and gained a comprehensive understanding of subscriber management systems.
Cleeng is designed to empower your organization’s growth with a robust and scalable platform. We will now take a look at how Cleeng’s features and capabilities align with your needs, offering a solution that drives results and supports long-term success.
Cleeng–the go-to subscriber management system for digital subscription businesses
Cleeng is an all-in-one subscriber management system tailored for digital subscription companies, streamlining every aspect of D2C subscription operations. Its comprehensive platform simplifies key activities, including:
- Customer identity management
- Payments & Billing solutions
- Entitlements & App integration
- Analytics & actionable insights
What makes Cleeng different from other solutions?
The short answer? Retention. In fact, we pioneered Subscriber Retention Management® (SRM).
Cleeng offers a unique blend of operational and analytical tools designed to help you bring your content to market in minutes. Our platform not only streamlines delivery but also focuses on maximizing subscriber retention and lifetime value, ensuring long-term success for your business.
Meet Subscriber Retention Management®
Retaining subscribers is key to driving growth for digital subscription businesses. That’s why we developed a comprehensive subscriber management system crafted to support the entire customer journey, with a strong focus on detecting and preventing churn.
A great range of integrations
Cleeng seamlessly integrates with any existing tech stack—and if it doesn’t yet, we’ll ensure it does. Our platform can efficiently collect and import essential data from other suppliers using our robust data lake.
A suite of unparalleled tools
We’ve provided viable and actionable customer retention strategies to established subscription businesses worldwide, with big presence in the Media & Entertainment industry, including The Weather Channel, CBC, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Optus Sport, and many sports brands like NFL, CHL, Tennis Channel, Big Ten Network and more.
“Cleeng allows Flow Sports to identify which cable customers are using the app, and which mobile customers are using the app to best optimize the marketing. If not enough cable customers are using it, it's best to change strategy to target them, and Cleeng offers some great insights onto those customers". —Brandon Carvalho, Digital Media Strategist at Flow Sports
Fast implementation
Cleeng is quick and easy (in the realm of SMS) to implement.
"It was incredibly refreshing to me that I had to do almost nothing... It was a very easy process to launch in all of those platforms."
—Christy King, CTO at BKFC
“We had a really tight timeline; it was done in two and a half weeks, so it was pretty amazing.”
—Levan Gvaramia, Chief Product Officer of Setanta Sports Eurasia
As stated above, only 11 weeks passed between the NFL placing their trust in Cleeng and the team being up and running.
In comparison, other solutions will often require a minimum of 6 months for implementation.
Cleeng's comprehensive Subscriber Retention Management system
Our subscriber retention management system consists of 4 foundational products: Core, Merchant, ChurnIQ, and Hi5.
Core: Your comprehensive subscriber management system
Core is a powerful Subscriber Management System (SMS) designed to manage your entire subscription service seamlessly.
It handles everything from localized offer creation, user entitlement, and access management to recurring billing and promotional campaigns. Core empowers digital subscription teams by making it easy to attract and convert users into subscribers with customizable offers. Brands can experiment with content monetization models, testing various structures, locations, and pricing to deliver the most effective and attractive offers to their audience.
Whether selling one-time passes or recurring subscriptions, Core enables broadcasters to do more with a full set of APIs and SDKs, enterprise-grade GDPR compliance and security, compatibility with major Online-Video-Platforms (OVPs) and app frameworks, extensive offer management tools, and 35+ easily integrated connectors.
Core also simplifies customer authentication, providing total visibility into subscribers' consumption habits through an intuitive dashboard.
Additionally, it empowers subscribers with a control center where they can manage their subscriptions by updating account or payment details and adjusting their subscription plans. This reduces accidental cancellations, improves customer satisfaction, and boosts retention rates.
Cleeng Core is the ultimate solution for businesses looking to optimize their subscription services and deliver an exceptional user experience.
Merchant: Subscriber billing and tax management for D2C subscriptions
Merchant is designed specifically to streamline purchase management and optimize the checkout experience.
With Merchant, you can collect revenue globally while benefiting from improved payment conversion and seamless tax management. Its dynamic checkout engine automatically adapts to local tax codes, ensuring accurate tax collection at the point of purchase. Fully GDPR-compliant, Merchant lets you focus on your business's big picture instead of worrying about ticking small boxes.
As the Merchant of Record, Cleeng helps you eliminate unnecessary fees and penalties, significantly reducing operational costs.
“Payment processing is extremely valuable to us. With the introduction of the handling of tax, it is even more valuable. The improvements in the reporting are welcome. The interface is much easier to understand and download data in an expedited manner.” — Samantha Amaral, Manager of Broadcast and OTT Operations at OUTtv
Merchant's deep integrations with leading payment providers such as Adyen and PayPal open access to over 200+ payment methods across 230+ countries and territories. It also supports 18 languages and popular global currencies, offering unparalleled flexibility from day one.
Additionally, Merchant can:
- Help improve customer retention by flagging reasons why payments fail for your subscribers
- Predict the payment methods connected to subscriber churn
- See the whole picture at every touch point from trial to consumption
ChurnIQ: Smart and predictive churn analytics
Customer acquisition costs on average 4 to 5 times more than retaining existing customers.
That's where ChurnIQ comes in–a powerful, actionable data platform designed to deliver precise predictive analytics. Trusted by hundreds of D2C digital product teams, ChurnIQ empowers businesses to improve retention rates by providing deep insights into subscriber behavior.
Here's how ChurnIQ helps you stay ahead of churn:
- Analyzing customer data to uncover actionable insights.
- Track customer engagement to identify churn patterns on your platform.
- Forecast seasonal trends and measure campaign performance in real time.
- Pinpoint issues like poor payment performance.
- Detect high failure rates in specific locations, payment methods, or dunning schedules.
- Seamlessly integrate with marketing tools like Mailchimp, Zapier, and more.
It will then segment your customers into different, applicable groups, such as:
- Long-term users that have never converted to paying subscribers.
- Inactive users that have not engaged for at least two months.
- Infrequent users whose visits to your platform are noticeably declining.
“As you know your customer, you're able to actually produce and deliver better content to your customer. This way, you can retain them and increase revenue". — Ari Brock, Executive Director, Digital Media & Products at Tennis Channel
ChurnIQ also has an easy-to-read dashboard that displays essential subscriber data.
Make more informed decisions
Churn IQ turns key analytics into actionable numbers such as your monthly recurring revenue, total number of subscribers, and their lifetime value and churn rate.
These insights can fuel your decision-making and lead to more impactful and successful campaigns. After all, coupons and codes are only as good as the algorithm that created them.
With ChurnIQ in your toolbox, you’ll get effective, pre-configured campaigns that are automatically generated so you can export target lists, thereby elevating your marketing efforts and enhancing the visibility of your content to your customers.
Hi5: 24/7 support experience for your subscribers
Hi5 is your reliable, flexible partner in delivering exceptional customer service. Designed to address customer concerns around the clock, it helps you provide an outstanding experience, 24/7. Best of all, Hi5 is quick to implement—taking just two weeks to launch. This means you can be up and running, delivering top-notch subscriber care, without delay.
Building costly, custom infrastructure often leads to months of delays and unpredictable outcomes. Hi5 eliminates this complexity with a suite of ready-to-use tools, including a prefabricated FAQ Help Center, an AI-powered chatbot, integrated support workflows, and streamlined chargeback management. These carefully refined systems are designed to elevate your critical support KPIs and ensure success from day one.
Hi5 equips your customer support team with everything they need to provide viewers with the attention and assistance they deserve, including:
- Subscriber-focused support: tailored for the D2C subscription sector, Hi5 anticipates and addresses a broad spectrum of subscriber needs, from streaming issues to payment challenges and geo-restrictions.
- Branded Help Center: a user-friendly hub featuring FAQs and video tutorials, designed to empower subscribers with self-service options while achieving a high resolution rate of 78%.
- Global reach with multilingual support: offering assistance in up to 29 languages, Hi5 ensures 24/7 availability, catering to a diverse global audience.
- Expert D2C team: achieving an impressive 80% one-touch resolution rate, our team showcases excellence in ticket handling, backed by years of industry experience.
- Advanced chatbot capabilities: equipped to handle a range of inquiries instantly, from password resets to content access
- Real-time analytics: provides businesses with a 360° view of customer interactions, enabling informed decision-making.
- Efficient refund and chargeback management: works seamlessly with payment providers to minimize chargebacks, ensuring smooth financial operations.
Enter the world of subscriber management and take your D2C company to the next level
A subscriber management system is no longer an option but necessary for businesses looking to provide exceptional customer experiences, streamline operations, and grow sustainably.
By leveraging the benefits of an SMS, D2C digital product teams can effectively manage subscribers, gain valuable insights, and build long-term relationships, thus improving the average lifetime value.
If this sounds like something you’re after, Cleeng may very well be the partner you’re after!
We value our partnerships and aim to provide transparency and integrity through every level of engagement. Our knowledge and expertise have been utilized by some of the most recognizable brands (Sinclair Broadcasting Group, NFL, Optus Sport, Big Ten Network, CHL) to help them strengthen their business models, customer success, and retention strategy, and achieve satisfied and loyal customers.
Ready to get started with Cleeng?
