How to create a personalised renewal experience

Renewals can be used when a subscriber is a on fixed-term subscription, i.e. it ends on a specific date. Fixed-term subscriptions are used in various ways:

• A subscription for a business based on a 2-years contract that requires a manual renewal at the end of term.
• A lapsed or cancelled subscription that is being renewed.
• A gift subscription that is ending and needs to be renewed into an auto-renew subscription.

If subscribers decide to renew their subscriptions, they need to be able to offer an online renewal experience with specific offers that encourages renewals. Limio offers you the ability to create a personalised renewal experience to accelerate renewals. This is possible by directing the customer to renewal Pages with personalised offers.

In this guide, we will introduce:

1. Create a Renewal Page to start the renewal process  

2. Create Renewal Pages that maps to your catalog

3. Create Journeys to direct customers to the relevant Renewal Pages

4. Check how renewals are integrated with Zuora

5. Test the Renewal Experience

1. Create a Renewal Page to start the renewal process  

A customer will access the Renewal journey primarily by authenticating and choosing which Subscription to renew. This is the recommended way of starting the renewal process.This can be facilitated via the Limio Renewal Options Component:

Carefully configure the Login button URL to take the customer to your authentication provider and then on to the starting point of a Limio Journey or directly to a specific Renewal Page. This would take the form of a URL to the authentication page and a redirect URL post-authentication. For example, https://{{domain}}.com/s/login/?estartURL=https%3A%2F%2F{{domain}}.com%2Fsso-auth%2F%3Flmo_redirect_url%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2F{{domain}}.com%2F{{campaignTag}}.

Alternatively, you can also directly start a renewal process from a link inside an email or an app. Skip this step if this is the case

(Optional) How to handle renewals for customers who don't have an account

Limio can support renewal for an unauthenticated Customer. This use case is tailored to companies selling physical subscription (e.g. print newspapers) or for companies selling license code that need to be manually renewed. It will require to use a Subscription Number and Post Code to renew a specific Subscription

Fill in the Manual entry renewal text rich text field to provide some copy and a URL to take the customer to the unauthenticated version of the Renewal journey. The page where the user is redirected here should contain the Limio Renewal Form Component:

Here the customer will be able to use the Subscription Number and their Post Code to update their subscription without the need to authenticated.

❗️This page can also be used to direct users to renew from other channels subRef and email query parameters can be used to initiate a renewal on this page.

e.g. https://limio.com/renew?subRef=00000001&email=[e-mail]

Setup the Continue button url prop to send your customer to your Renewal Pages after the subscription has been successfully looked up. This time be careful to add the subRef query parameter variable to your URL so that the Limio Renewal Page knows which subscription your customer is attempting to renew.

Additionally, the lmo_co query parameter can be used to make sure your customer is directed to the correct country's pricing in the case of global Pages.

e.g. /renew?subRef={{subRef}}&lmo_co={{country}}

2. Create Renewal Pages that maps to your catalog

As part of the renewal experience, you will want to suggest alternative offers to the subscribers to renew. These can be the:

1. The same as your acquisition Offers, in which case you will simply point them to your existing Acquisition Page. 
2. Special Renewal Pages to entice your customers to resubscribe through special segmented deals.

In the 2nd option, you will likely need to create Renewal Pages that maps to your Acquisition Pages. For example, if you have specific pages for UK customers with GBP£ pricing, then you will need a Renewal Pages in GBP£ for UK customers. Similarly, if you have Acquisition Pages for Product A, you will want a Renewal Page for Product A. Those routing are achieved via Journeys, onto which you can layer on segmentation. To set up Renewal Pages, you can follow our guide on creating Pages.

For the checkout and order complete, you can similarly use your existing acquisition checkout and order complete, or create a more personalised renewal and order complete checkout that may include different messaging.

3. Create Journeys to direct customers to the relevant Renewal Pages

To serve the right renewal page, you will then need to create Limio journeys. This is where you will set which Renew Page(s) a subscriber will receive based on:

• their initial product (if you sell multiple products)
• their segment (defined through the condition) 
• their purchase country (if you have localised pricing)

To learn more how Limio journeys work and how to set one up, go to:

• For conditions based on customer's products/terms/offers: Create a Journey based on Subscription Offer Labels
• For conditions based on customer segments: Create a Journey based on Limio Segments & Journeys 
• For conditions based on purchase country: Create a Journey based on the customer location

4. Check how renewals are integrated with Zuora

There are 3 kinds of customers that can renew a subscription:

• 1. A subscriber with an active fixed term (not auto renewing) subscription
• 2. A subscriber with a lapsed or cancelled subscription
• 3. A subscriber with an active gift subscription

For each one of these Limio will impact the Zuora Billing Accounts and Subscriptions as follows:

	Type	Active Subscription	Zuora Billing Account	Zuora Subscription
1	Active Fixed Term	Yes	Update Existing	Update Existing
2	Lapsed / Cancelled	No	Update Existing	Create New
3	Active Gift	Yes	Create New	Create New

In the case of a new Subscription being added in Zuora, the start date of this new Subscription will be after the existing Subscription ends.

In the case of updating existing subscription, Limio will perform an Add Product action followed by a Renew Subscription to the Subscription at the end of the current active term.

5. Test the Renewal Experience

To view your renewal experience from your customers perspective, you'll need to carry out a 'Live Test' through the Manage My Account portal in a sandbox account. This step involves you ordering up your own product and logging-in to Limio Self Service Manage My Account page with the email of your order, or using your Subscription Number

Step 1 - Go to your Renewal Page and either log in to your account or use your Subscription Number & Post Code to look up the subscription you want to renew

Step 2- You will now be displayed a selection of Offers, choose a renewal offer

Step 3 - Go through Limio Checkout and confirm your renewal

Step 4 - Once you reach the Limio Order Confirmation page, proceed to Limio Self Service Manage My Account to observe your newly renewed Subscription.

If you have any questions about how to create a renewal experience, please email us at [e-mail]