Category Archives: Uncategorized

March Webinars

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Understanding and Creating Price Plan Components

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When: Thursday March 21st
Time: 2:00 eastern
Duration: 1 hour
Cost: Free
Presenter: Donna McPhee, Fusebill Customer Success Manager

Overview
Flat pricing is often used only because it’s easy, not because it’s what’s best for your business. Fusebill gives you the power and flexibility to define the subscription pricing plans that meet your needs – now and as you grow.

In this webinar you’ll learn:

  • What components are and how to use them
  • How easy it is to price using one-time, recurring, usage and volume based plans.
  • How to set up automated one time or ongoing discounts, coupons, and free trials.
  • How Fusebill components can benefit not just your billing, but your entire organization and your bottom line.
  • How component reports show what’s working and what’s not.
  • How Fusebill price plan components help move back end operations to the front.
  • How Price plan components make price changes and price testing easy to implement, monitor and report on.

This webinar also includes hands on demonstrations of how to set up price plan components in the Fusebill Platform.
Register Now: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3176104612355353344

Subscription Billing Service Danger Signs

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Note: This is a reschedule of the webinar cancelled in February

When: Thursday March 28, 2:00 PM EST
Where: Online using GoToWebinar
Cost: Free
Presenter: Steve Adams, Fusebill CEO

Overview:
Selecting a recurring billing platform is a risky decision, selecting the wrong one can cause havoc on your business, your customers, and your coworkers.

In this webinar Fusebill CEO, Steve Adams will share seven of the most important things to watch out for when conducting your research and making your selection.

When it comes to automating your billing, what you don’t know about your service provider can hurt you.
Register Now: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5750773816513576448

Pricing Strategy: Four Pricing Methods That Work

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Today’s post is by guest blogger Kathy Cady who writes for the website How Much Is It. When she isn’t writing guest posts, Kathy is helping consumers around the globe find out how much things cost.

fourIf you’re thinking about starting a business, or if you already have, you probably already know that you’re going to have to have a pricing strategy.  To get you on the right path to pricing success, here are four methods that seem to work for most businesses out there:

#1 Base on value
You really have to step back and look at what you’re selling and value it accordingly.  For example, let’s say you own a steakhouse. Since we all know that there are many kinds of steaks, you will want to price each item properly so to not mislead your customer.  If you charge the same price for a choice and prime steak, it’s probably going to annoy your customers, because  people know when they are getting the best bang for their buck.

#2 Price based on benefits
Customers love benefits no matter what type of business you own. Let’s use the steakhouse example again.  If you were to group a steak dinner with an appetizer, dessert and a drink, as a bundle for one price, people would see that there are benefits to ordering the bundle as opposed to ordering each item separately. When you package items together like this, you can obviously charge accordingly, but many customers will see this “benefit” as a great value.  If choosing this price strategy, make sure  you upsell these benefits so the customer sees the value right away and know they are getting the most for their money.

#3 Don’t forget features
Think of how many items sit on store shelves.  This could be because they need more features, or additional items added to increase their value.  For instance, think of a child’s toy, many of them take batteries, which would be an accessory to the original product. Carry this idea through the entire toy store and you’ll find there are many additional accessories you would benefit by selling togewther.  If you’re going to sell items that need to have (or could have) accessories, consider selling them separately, as add-ons.  This not only brings the customer back, but encourages them to purchase more. It’s also a good idea to stock these items near each other. If customers see batteries right beside the toy display, they are more likely to grab a pack. This works on websites as well. For example, a flower and gift basket site like Bloomex will show the customer addons like vases, cards, and candy after the original purchase is selected but before the checkout process.

#4 Leave room for error
No matter what market you’re in, there are always going to be competitors. So always make sure you leave room for error when pricing your items.  To do this, make sure you know the overall cost of the item – if the full cost of a steak dinner is $3 then you may want to price it at $14. This gives you room to decrease the price when the economy is in a slump or if you want to have a sale. Remember,  customers love to see lowered prices as opposed to  prices that increase.

Managing Portal Credentials

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With a Fusebill’s self service web portal you can give your customers secure access to their account information where they can  view past and current invoices online, update contact and billing information, view payments and even renew subscriptions.

Implementing a portal provides  you with a pre-emptive, automated approach that will reduce lifecycle costs and allow you to provide better customer service while reducing the number of calls and email to your billing and support teams.

Managing portal credentials is easy. Once the portal is live, the first step is to include login information in the welcome email you send to your customer.

Just navigate to the email communications section of Fusebill and choose the Welcome new customer email template. Select the login and password merge fields from the Special Merge points category and copy and paste into the email template body. Your customers get the info they need to access and  login to your portal and you avoid the hassle of creating and storing credentials.  You can even choose which field you prefer for the portal login (email address, account number, etc.)

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If your customer forgets or misplaces their password, your support team can just as easily send them a an email with reset instructions.

It’s literally one button click on your Customer Detail screen:

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And, with the notification bar, you know right away if the email was sent successfully.

Whether you’re large or small, selling B2B or B2C, Fusebill’s account management tools provide your business with the solutions you need to simplify billing challenges.  Better account management not only makes billing easier, frees up your IT team, it also improves relationships with your customers, and strong customer relationships lead to long customer relationships!

Pricing Strategy 5 – Tiered/Volume Pricing

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This is a very popular pricing model in the SaaS and subscription based world. Basically, a company offers different price packages where volume is the key differentiator. What constitutes volume varies of course. In the world of email marketing for example, volume or tiered pricing is based on the number of unique email addresses you have in your database.

In this exImageample you pay one price until you have 500 contacts and once you hit 501 you are in a different tier and the price goes up.

Tiered Regular Plan ExampleNumber of users is a another popular volume measurement, especially when it comes to corporate or enterprise licensed software. As you can see in this example there is one price for 5 users, a higher price for 10 uses and one for 50.

ImageNumber of features is can also be a volume metric. As you can see in these examples, the main benefit of offering tiered pricing is that you can accommodate different prospects who are interested in your product to varying degrees.

You’ll often see three tiers because it creates a frame of reference for the pricing. The goal is usually to sell the middle tier and the edges are included to make the pricing seem reasonable. i.e. when just a single price point is shown, people don’t know what to make of it – is it a good price for the value of the service? – and don’t make a decision. When it is bracketed by two other prices, conversion goes up.

Two other things make this pricing strategy attractive to subscription businesses.

  1. Most contracts include the caveat that if your customer goes over the tier they are in, they are bumped up automatically. Which means the upsell takes care of itself. Of course, it’s a good idea to let your customers know their next bill is going to be higher to avoid angry calls to your support lines.
  2. Perceived value is an intrinsic part of human nature. Many people will buy the tier higher than the one they actually need because it’s perceived to be a better deal. The first and third examples in this post do a great job of playing to this.

In the first example you can up to 500 contacts for $15 but for only double the price of $30 you get 5 times as many contacts. Even though this company will probably bump the customer up when they hit 501 automatically, if they can get the customer to but the higher tier before they need it, they get an extra $15 a month.

The third example does an even better job, they charge less than double the price for more than double the number of projects. Even if the customer only has 15 projects the perceived value will entice many to pay a larger price for more than they need.

If you using or are thinking of implementing a tiered/volume based pricing strategy, it’s very important that you do a market analysis where your goal is to adequately address each segment. You’ll see much better results than if you just pull your prices out of the air.

Make Your Business Financially Stable through Proper Debt Management

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Today our guest blogger is Marlon Powell from DebtConsolidationCare.com In today’s economy, debt is a major concern of many business owners. While Fusebill helps speed collections, improve cash flow as well as reduce billing and support costs, if this enough for your business, there are options so you can keep your doors open.

There are large numbers of small business owners facing the pressure of debt. Well, the good news is they can find their way out by fully cooperating with debt relief providers. Getting debt relief is very easy these days with the surge in the number of debt relief companies and the quality services provided by them. There are also a large number of counseling sessions organized by these companies. Attending these sessions will give you better ideas on debt management that can save your business from going bankrupt. Discussions with experts will help you choose the appropriate debt management option.

The following are the three major ways you can handle your business debt and make sure your business keeps on running the way it should.

  • Debt settlement – Debt settlement services are available in numbers. Thanks to the debt negotiators, the debtors are able to bring down their overall debts to manageable levels. These debt negotiators work in debt relief organizations and provide useful ideas to the debtors. The negotiations involve asking the creditors to make the terms friendlier and the interests lower. The creditors are also asked to give waivers on the penalty charges and extra fees. The focus is mainly on making the creditors accept nothing more than the original principal amount. Getting debt free becomes easier for the debtor with the reduced amount. Keep in mind, your credit score will take a hit if you opt for debt settlement. This will eventually make it difficult for you to get new credit.
  • Debt consolidation – It is important that you get in touch with a debt consultant if you’re willing to consolidate your multiple business debts. Preparation of a budget is necessary before you go for debt consolidation. Your financial status and income are taken into account during the preparation of the budget. The repayment plan devised is presented to the creditors for approval. Multiple debt payments merge into one under debt consolidation. Debt consolidation reduces the overall debt amount as well as the interest rates charged. Further, you receive waivers on the extra charges and extensions on the repayment terms. All of this combined makes the debt payment process much easier for the debtors.
  • Bankruptcy – Bankruptcy should be considered as the last option when it comes to dealing with business debts. A company is eligible to file for bankruptcy if it loses its ability to pay off debts. Businesses in the US can go for either Chapter 11 or the simpler Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

It is important for small business owners to do a proper review of the annual budget. With an eye to cutting  unnecessary costs to reduce pressure on the budget. The extra cash saved will speed up the debt repayment process.

Setting up Permission Based Roles

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I wanted to highlight an important feature for controlling access to Fusebill.  Recurring billing plays a central role in the day-day life of a company, and so everyone from billing agents through product managers and executives want or need access.

Permission based roles let you limit what your Fusebill users can see within the account. Most clients limit their billing clerks by using the “Agent” role, which allows them access to the Customer tab to create and manage customers. A smaller number of “Admin” users have broader access to manage price components and reporting. Special checkout pages can be used for data entry clerks, letting them create accounts without providing any Fusebill system access whatsoever.

Roles are setup and managed under My Account >> Role Management.

Fusebill Permission Based Roles

Fusebill Permission Based Roles

Generating lists with Fusebill recurring billing

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Sometimes it’s the little things that make a big difference, and I want to call your attention to a powerful little button (Export to CSV).

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Lots of workflow processes converge around your recurring billing platform. For example, you might want to:

  • invite your customers to a seminar;
  • send (cranky!) collection letters to customers that are late paying;
  • have your sales team call customers whose subscriptions are renewing;
  • reach out to a group of clients to tell them about new features or pricing.

Use the customer search filters to narrow the list of onscreen customers, and then Export to CSV. You can further process the list in Excel,  import it into other applications – or put it in front of your phone and start calling!

Cloud Automates, Eases Subscription-Billing Process Pains with Fusebill

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There’s a nice profile of one of our customers in 21st Century IT today. Fusebill powers the recurring billing for the e-SignLive online esignature service. E-signlive replaced their proprietary billing with Fusebill:

“We initially built our own billing system, and that was extremely painful, excruciatingly hard. We were really looking to offer better billing options for customers, and be able to test different price points with our packaging. With FuseBill we can quickly iterate.“

The full article is available here.

Fusebill introduces Self-Service Portal

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Fusebill’s new self-service portal gives your clients secure access to their account information, letting you provide better customer service while reducing the number of calls and emails.

The self-service portal is fully branded with your chosen colors and logos. It allows end-customers to:

  • update customer information (name, address, etc.)
  • manage payment information (update credit card, change expiry date)
  • view online invoices, statements and payment history;
  • purchase new subscriptions (upsell or cross-sell);
  • view custom information like usage levels or applications keys.

The portal is configurable so that you can control exactly what information customers can see and edit. Fusebill provides tight security and password management, including resetting forgotten passwords!

The Fusebill self-service portal is currently available in the Fusebill Enterprise package.