Jumpstart Guide

You just signed up! Now what?

You’re ready for launch right out of the gates, with a new recovery campaign pre-loaded with:

• A retry sequence to maximize recoveries with fewer emails sent
• Email templates and a delivery schedule based on best practices
• Mobile-optimized, no-login card update pages

You'll have full visibility into what’s happening so you can gather data over the next 60-90 days before making adjustments.

• NOTE: The account ramps up gradually as the system monitors for your customers’ next failed payments. By default, the first email is sent a few days after the next failed payment, so you have plenty of time to make changes if needed.
  

Level up your account:

1. Add teammates

Invite your teammates to access the account.

2. Improve email deliverability

Add DNS records to authenticate your sending domain. This makes your emails look personal, legitimate, and trustworthy in your customers’ inboxes. It’s not necessary, but it is highly recommended and only takes about 5 minutes of your time. Learn more >

3. Review/customize your campaign

The default email templates have been tested at-scale, so they are a great starting point even when used as-is. But every business is unique, and a more customized approach can yield improvements as you collect more data.

The Campaign Scheduler unlocks infinite potential to analyze and tweak your recovery campaigns to fit your specific needs:

• Customize email messaging to match your brand voice
• Add a branded/stylized look to your emails with the click of a button
• Change the sender address on a per-email basis
• Extend or shorten the campaign window

4. Subscribe to email notifications

Sign up to notify yourself or your support team when campaigns start, payments are recovered, campaigns are lost, or emails bounce.

This allows you to stay close to the customer experience, especially as things get rolling.

‍Common questions

ARE THE CUSTOMERS CURRENTLY IN A DUNNING SEQUENCE GOING TO RECEIVE EXTRA EMAILS WHEN I SWITCH CHURN BUSTER ON?

Because customers will be at different stages of dunning when you switch systems, some may receive additional emails. These customers are retained at a lower rate compared to those who are first contacted by Churn Buster.

Churn Buster will surface campaign issues like email bounces, so you'll identify and address campaign issues that went unnoticed in your prior setup.

WILL CUSTOMERS WHO ALREADY WENT THROUGH A CAMPAIGN IN MY PREVIOUS SETUP GO THROUGH A NEW CHURN BUSTER CAMPAIGN?

Campaigns begin when recurring payments fail. So customers without more retries scheduled will not be added to a Churn Buster campaign by default.

If you’d like to start campaigns for previously past-due customers, simply retry payment on their past-due subscription. You’ll then see a campaign created in Churn Buster.

‍MY OLD SYSTEM HAD PRE-DUNNING EMAILS. DO YOU?

Pre-dunning has been discontinued in Churn Buster.

This outdated practice notifies customers about billing issues that aren't actually issues. (Learn more here.) Customers will still receive emails after there is a confirmed issue — and only after pre-email retries to the card-on-file fail to succeed.

WHY WAIT A FEW DAYS BEFORE MY FIRST EMAIL IS SENT? SHOULDN'T WE LET CUSTOMERS KNOW RIGHT AWAY?

The default campaign schedule waits a few days before sending the first email to allow time to retry the payment at least once before contacting your customer.

Prioritizing retry recoveries is a unique focus of Churn Buster. On average, 21% of payments can be recovered through retries that happen before the first email is even sent.

• Churn Buster isn’t just sending email, it’s also allowing “soft declines” (for example, temporary billing issues like a maxed out credit card) to clear without sending any email at all — a vastly different technique than basic dunning tools employ.

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Not only will you recover more revenue with retries, but this approach also leads to fewer cancellations and billing-related support issues — in addition to providing your customers a better overall experience.

‍WHAT HAPPENS AT THE END OF CHURN BUSTER CAMPAIGNS?

You can run campaigns as long as you need, with options for leaving subscriptions open or canceling them automatically if a recovery is unsuccessful.

HOW WILL I KNOW IT'S WORKING?

Your dashboard begins tracking results as soon as campaigns begin. You’ll see how recovery performance changes over time, as well as how campaigns are won: via card update or automated retry.

You also have the ability to search for customers and filter based on their campaign status so that you can detect issues, copy card update links, or inform your support team about a customer’s progress. Companies report having more visibility and a smoother billing support process after switching to Churn Buster.

"What's up with my early results?"

Keep in mind that the first month can be a less-representative (and lower-quality) cohort for a variety of reasons, including:

• Campaigns starting on the final payment attempt (and being counted as a lost recovery after only a few days)
• Customers getting contacted who have already been contacted from a previous setup

Stay patient, and let some fresh cycles run to completion before evaluating what's actually happening.

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Churn Buster makes a complicated job easy.

At this point, you now have automated, secure failed payments handling in place — with advanced features available as your company grows and collects data. Expect to run campaigns for 60-90 days to establish baseline performance with a few monthly cohorts running through to completion.

Customers won't slip away unnoticed, and they're now treated to a high-trust, low-friction experience at this crucial stage of the customer lifecycle.

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