How Beekeeper’s Naturals Scales their Subscription Program
Beekeeper’s Naturals crafts clean remedies for modern health challenges from brain fog to low energy. Optimizing their subscription program and growing recurring revenue is crucial for the team moving forward.
Challenge
In 2018, Beekeeper’s Naturals launched their subscription program. At the time, ReCharge was the only platform marketing itself as an out of the box solution for Shopify stores.
Their team ran into many issues with ReCharge:
Poor customer portal experience — Customers of both their US and Canada stores weren’t able to skip shipments, add items to their next shipment, and other basic tasks. This led to customer service tickets where their team had to manually update customer’s subscriptions.
“Subscribers are our most loyal customers and the ReCharge customer portal was a completely different experience than the rest of our website. It’s very basic and looks the same for every brand,” said Daniel Miller, Chief Operating Officer at Beekeeper’s Naturals.
Limited solution — Beekeeper’s Naturals had to overlay another app to be able to upsell customers and create cancellation flows. However, they had to pause upselling and other functions because the app didn’t integrate properly.
Impersonal service — After trying to get faster responses from ReCharge’s customer service team, Beekeeper’s Naturals received an email from ReCharge that stated they could upgrade their plan for an extra $49 per month to receive responses within 24 hours.
“ReCharge’s customer service was really poor. We were often on our own to figure things out,” said Daniel. Beekeeper’s Naturals realized they needed to look at more customizable solutions as their subscription program wasn’t growing in line with the rest of their business.
“We heard from Four Sigmatic that Upscribe is doing amazing stuff, committed to meeting customer’s needs, and built their platform doing development work with massive clients. After understanding what comes with Upscribe from chatting with them, it was a no brainer for us,” said Daniel.
Solution
After moving to Upscribe, they’ve seen a significant drop in tickets from customers requesting help with managing their subscriptions while also increasing their active subscribers.
“When you are going to a new partner, everyone talks a good game out of the gate, but it’s been everything we thought of and more. They fully support us and that’s rare in this day and age,” said Daniel. With the Upscribe customer portal, their subscribers can edit orders, buy products once, and skip shipments. “In the past, subscribers were more likely to cancel if they were frustrated. Now it’s easier for them to navigate the customer portal and achieve what they want themselves,” said Daniel.
With Upscribe’s Klaviyo integration, Beekeeper’s Naturals is also now able to send customized email flows to upsell customers and increase their lifetime value. Beekeeper’s Naturals even have cancellation flows set up to help reduce churn. Beekeeper’s Natural know Upscribe will be their partner moving forward as they continue to grow recurring revenue. Their future plans include implementing ways to reward subscribers further, such as sending loyalty swag for long-term subscribers and setting aside inventory.
“Upscribe as a platform allows us to provide outstanding customer service. Out of the box, it’s amazing. As we use more of their features, Upscribe will take our subscription program to the next level,” said Daniel.
