We subscribe to a fun monthly subscription box of international treats called Universal Yums. You can sign up for a month-to-month membership or pay a little less for a full year, which is what we do.
A few days ago, Universal Yums contacted me with a reminder that my annual subscription will be ending soon. The message included a few easy steps to renew the membership, which I did.
I love when businesses do this, particularly when an annual membership is involved. I think it’s great customer service, as who can keep track of all of their subscription end dates these days? In fact, I’m fine with either method: a renewal notice or a notification that the subscription is due to autorenew (along with clear instructions for cancellation). Most of the time I prefer autorenewals with cancellation notices.
I particularly like when there’s a feeling of anonymity to the choice of renewal/cancellation–I don’t want Universal Yums to take it personally if I decide to take a break. That’s the sole reason why I stopped using Patreon. On Patreon, if you cancel a pledge, the creator gets a note saying, “[your name] no longer supports you.”
So it was with those goals in mind that I designed our Stonemaier Champion membership renewal system. Stonemaier Champions pay $15/year to support this blog and my game design YouTube channel, and in return they save 25% on every order on our webstore. Their orders are prioritized over non-Champion orders, and I often offer other special perks to Champions as I think of them.
Basically, if you place more than 1 order on our webstore each year, you’ll save money as a Stonemaier Champion. That’s probably a big part of the reason there are currently 6,747 Champions.
At the end of every month, I send out an email to all Champions whose memberships are set to autorenew the following month. The email says they can (a) do nothing and remain a Champion for another 12 months, (b) keep their membership but update their payment method (with instructions), or (c) cancel their membership:
“If you’d like to cancel your membership, I completely respect that decision. It’s easy to cancel, and if you do, I’m not going to know–the cancellation will happen completely behind the scenes. Here’s how:”
I then proceed with 3 easy steps with visuals to explain how to cancel. And that’s it. I want to make it just as easy for someone to leave as for someone to stay.
If you’d like to experience this system for yourself, I’m happy to invite you to become a Stonemaier Champion for a year! You can subscribe here.
While I really like this method for annual subscriptions, I’m not sure I want monthly renewal/cancellation reminders for monthly memberships. Though quarterly reminders would be nice. What do you think?
If you have examples other than Universal Yums and Stonemaier Games for ways that subscription services try to value your membership, I’d love to hear about them in the comments.
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8 Comments on “Renewals, Cancellations, and Treat Boxes”
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I also use virtual credit cards from privacy.com for subscriptions and set limits on them so that in the event I do forget to cancel a subscription, I’m not charged beyond what I originally intended.
I wish all companies were honest and transparent. Cancelling shouldn’t be a negative experience. It’s perfectly fine to have a break, try something different or your budget just can’t justify the luxury. Let’s be honest board gaming is more than likely be the first to go when times are tough. It’s so important to have a smooth transition that you have nothing but good things to say about that company. There are so many greedy companies that bank on you not cancelling a trial, make it impossible to find the cancellation option on their labyrinth of menu options. You are still going to want to cancel at the end of the day but they will hit you for one months subscription if you had forgotten to cancel and then lose your business entirely. Whose the fool then?
$10 off per purchase is a pretty fantastic benefit for being a Stonemaier champion. As you said, you’re actually saving money if you buy more than once from the Stonemaier store. I’m assuming that since it’s encouraging more purchases, you aren’t then losing money by giving out more in discounts than they paid to be a champion?
Layne: On a per-order basis, we are making less if you’re a Champion, but we’re happy to have those direct customers, especially since we can serve them best directly.
This is a great idea. How is this run from a tech point of view, though? Is this something that can be set up easily on existing software, or did you need to have a web developer do this for you?
We use a Shopify app called Bold Recurring Memberships.
Just another note about Universal Yums. We had a subscription for them with two friends. During the pandemic we were able to put a hold on our subscription until we could all get together again. I agree that had excellent customer service.
That’s great, Mary!