Key insights on lifecycle engagement and AI innovation

Understanding the intricacies of subscriber engagement and leveraging AI innovation are more crucial than ever. Our in-person event in New York, Strategies to transform subscriber lifecycles, in partnership with Worldpay, brought together industry leaders to explore strategies to turn engagement into revenue:

• Tiffany Yang, Director of Product Management, Twitch

• Gus Jacobs, Payment Operations and Strategy Lead, NY Times

• Andrei Rebrov, CTO & Co-founder, Scentbird

• John Winstel, VP of Product Management, Worldpay

• Lina Tonk, Chief Marketing Officer, Recurly

This expert panel shared their knowledge on enhancing lifecycle engagement, offering a wealth of information to help businesses thrive in an AI-driven world. Watch it on-demand or continue reading to get the highlights of the event.

Priorities and challenges in subscription lifecycle engagement

Lifecycle engagement is the holistic approach to interacting with subscribers. Whether it's onboarding new customers, upselling existing ones, or re-engaging those at risk of churn. So, when prioritizing lifecycle engagement, you should consider payments to awareness, acquisition, and retention, plus the need to refine product management and pricing strategies. 

Emphasizing data-driven insights and constructive decision-making, Jacobs revealed the struggles of prioritizing varied revenue streams within the constraints of available resources. Delving into team dynamics, Rebrov shared how a unified comprehension of goals can help align departmental efforts effectively—customer support, engineering, data analytics, and marketing.

Operate in a physical world. We have a physical box to ship. We have, raw materials to receive them, process, create this box, and a lot of people are involved during this process.

And the simple question, who is responsible for retention, is not that simple. Is it the customer support, who handles customer issues? Is it the operation who have to accurately ship the box? Is it marketing who shouldn't overpromise something? Or maybe it's engineering who should make sure that there are no issues on the website, people can, cancel things. So on one hand, it is making sure that people understand their responsibility in the life cycle where they can deliver the most, by doing their job.

Long-term subscriptions, involuntary churn, and leadership alignment

The discussion then transitioned to churn, a fact of life in every subscription business. Winstel shared compelling arguments for institutional alignments, including customer support, data analytics, and financial departments, to manage customer churn, plus the need for an easy, one-click cancellation process.

What's really happening. So, John, I I thought you will be great at sharing, your experience with involuntary churn, where you see it right now, if you can share some of that with us.

Yeah. No. Absolutely.

It's the worst kind. Right? I mean, you you've already figured out how to win the customer. I think I saw a stat the other day where it said customer acquisition costs are up two hundred percent over the past ten years and when you start to think about it, you just look at all the different options that are out there whether it's streaming services or other buying goods and, and physical goods from that standpoint. But involuntary churn where, you know, that we're losing that customer because their payment credential is no longer up to date or something along those lines. So So one of the things that we try to work with our customers on really, really closely is making sure that you're utilizing things like network payment tokens, account updater.

Yang explained more about Twitch’s subscription model, which offers 1-month, 3-month, and 6-month services, and the correlations between longer subscription terms and lower churn rates. Additionally, Rebrov highlighted the importance of AI and personalization, delivering flexibility, and meeting customers where they are. 

The value of engaged customers

The panel was asked, What’s your take on subscribers who are paying but not necessarily using your service?

Jacobs stated that higher quality subscribers would have a longer lifetime value and stay with you for a longer period of time. A lot of energy and effort would be wasted trying to understand and activate those dormant subscriptions, plus the cancellation of an active vs. inactive subscriber has a tremendous effect on churn. 

On the other hand, Yang and Rebrov argue that you should “let customers be”, as long as they’re deliberately paying for the service—they will help build a strong financial foundation for your company. 

Having engaged customers is like better. Those are higher quality subscribers. They're gonna have a bigger lifetime value. They're gonna stay around for a longer time than having people who aren't engaging with the content.

I think that we have a lot of thought and a lot of energy goes into like, how do we activate those sort of dormant subscribers?

So we work very hard to like migrate people who maybe aspirationally wanted to, like, read the news or signed up and wanted to do the crossword every day to, like, really activate them and get them to do those things.

Global expansion and the role of AI

Moving on to the possibilities and challenges of global expansion, the panelists discussed resources and strategies for ensuring user experience, compliance, and understanding of alternative payment methods (APMs) across the globe.

Speakers expressed how AI can become a game-changer for fraud detection, personalized communication, dynamic paywalls, and targeted offers through chatbots capable of having authentic conversations and offering personal suggestions to customers.

What's really happening. So, John, I I thought you will be great at sharing, your experience with involuntary churn, where you see it right now, if you can share some of that with us.

Yeah. No. Absolutely.

It's the worst kind. Right? I mean, you you've already figured out how to win the customer. I think I saw a stat the other day where it said customer acquisition costs are up two hundred percent over the past ten years and when you start to think about it, you just look at all the different options that are out there whether it's streaming services or other buying goods and, and physical goods from that standpoint. But involuntary churn where, you know, that we're losing that customer because their payment credential is no longer up to date or something along those lines. So So one of the things that we try to work with our customers on really, really closely is making sure that you're utilizing things like network payment tokens, account updater.

Wrap up

This insightful discussion provides us with a deep understanding of the customer lifecycle and how data-driven alignment and clear communication across the company can help you reduce churn, increase retention, and satisfy long-term subscribers.

The value of AI in accelerating business operations and its potential to provide personalized solutions stood as an area of interest as well. This panel discussion encourages businesses to focus on lifecycle engagement, retention strategies, and AI applications.