Subscription-as-a-Service – The Modern Model

A subscription service offers so many more ways to sell products than have been possible before. That means you don’t need to have products dedicated to one-off purchases or subscriptions. Instead, you can deliver consumers enhancements to single transactions by using subscriptions as a value-add.

Subscription-as-a-Service, not to be confused with SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), is all about giving businesses more tools to target customers and deliver the value that their products and services are really built for. So how can a company incorporate subscription-as-a-service into their existing offering o, and how will it benefit their business and customers?

Neither One One Nor The Other

The idea of recurring billing isn’t exactly new, despite the fact it’s taken the B2C world by storm in the past decade. Still, many B2B organizations haven’t been able to tap into all the value a subscription service offers and this is, in part, due to not understanding how to implement it into their business.

Let’s be clear, a subscription service is not going to work for every product offering out there – nor should it. For many purchases, ownership simply makes more sense. But here’s the thing, one-off purchases don’t have to be isolated from subscriptions. In fact, they can be incorporated seamlessly to deliver more product value and customer satisfaction, along with a number of other benefits – but that’s a topic for another day. Right now, let’s focus on the how.

Subscription-Based Features

There are some homeware manufacturers out there, such as HAIER, that have begun to incorporate subscription services into what they do. Traditional homeware items like ovens, fridges, and tumble dryers aren’t everyday purchases. This leaves manufacturers in a tight spot when it comes to building deep relationships with their customers because they don’t often speak to them.

To combat this, those same manufacturers are beginning to create subscriptions that customers can sign up to that unlock additional features on their devices. That could be anything from voice activation to home network connectivity, truly bringing the device into the modern IoT age.

It’s not just white goods that fit this perfectly, there are also auto manufacturers who see the value in increasing the value they can deliver. The likes of Audi, Tesla, and BMW, all offer subscription services as a bolt-on to the big one-off purchases their customers normally make. These provide customers with more features on their vehicles, but from the business perspective, these car companies now have more regular contact with the customers, and more data on how they use their products, all on top of additional recurring revenue.

The regular, predictable revenue that a subscription service provides is a draw for many businesses, and it’s the thing that companies most often contact us about when they are first looking into a recurring billing model. There’s no question that’s a big part of why they’re so popular, but as you can see, there’s a lot more going on under the hood that makes subscription-as-a-service perfect for a company like yours.

Want to add value to your business? Make the jump to subscriptions, with GoRecurring.