We found it fairly easy once we worked out a good process. Treat your customers with respect, be understanding … and then respect the value of your service.
Here’s what we worked out:
1. Communicate. Notify customers 60 days prior to renewal that they have 60 days to pay in a proper, corporate invoice.
Most small businesses will ignore this, but most larger companies will then get it over to finance/accounting, who will need > 30 days to pay. It will kick off the right processes in the later case. 30 days is not enough in the enterprise.
2. Remind them again 30 days prior to renewal they need to pay now to avoid a service interruption. This is when you really get the attention of smaller businesses.
3. Alert them 7 days prior to renewal, if still haven’t paid, a service interruption is coming on Date X, both in email — and a phone call.
4. Provide a 7 day grace period after expiration, and allow an extension if they call and ask for one and promise the “check is in the mail” … AND ADD … a BIG RED BANNER ON THE WEBSITE you see every time you log in. That counts down until the service shuts down for nonpayment. So there are no surprises.
5. At the low end, potentially shut it down after all those notices, etc. and allow instant resumption upon payment. At the higher-end, do NOT shut down a mission-critical service ever. But do not allow any feature changes, seat adds, etc. until payment received.
This resulted in a very high level of payment.
