Automations recipes (use cases)
Still not sure how or when would you use our automations feature or feeling uncertain of its potential? Please read some of the well cooked use recipes in this article.
Recipe #1 Sending SMS to new customers of a certain product
Give a warm and more personal welcome to new subscribers by sending a text message.
Ingredients
- Trigger: Subscription created
- Action: Send SMS (make sure first to configure your Twilio app)
- Delay: Choose how many days/hours/minutes after the event took place the action will occur.
- Action's Data: Write down the message (you can even use tags!)
- Conditions: Product (key) + equals to (operator) + choose your product (value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #2 Applying a coupon to a customer after X number of orders
A special "thank you" in the form of a discount for loyal customers.
Ingredients
- Trigger: Order created
- Action: Apply coupon (make sure to previously create one according to this procedure)
- Action's Data: Choose your coupon
- Conditions: Subscription order count (key) + equals to (operator) + define number of orders (value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #3 Sending an email when the lifetime value of a customer exceeds X threshold
Get in touch when your store become the favorite one of a particular customer!
Ingredients
- Trigger: Order created
- Action: Send email
- Delay: Choose how many days/hours/minutes after the event took place the action will occur
- Action's Data: Write down the subject and message (you can even use tags!)
- Conditions: Lifetime value of customer (key) + greater than (operator) + establish a threshold for money spent on your store (value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #4 Targeting one-time buyers
Why not emailing those customers who already bought from you but weren't ready to commit to a subscription? Perhaps you can include an incentive
Ingredients
- Trigger: Order created
- Action: Send email
- Delay: Choose how many days/hours/minutes after the event took place the action will occur
- Action's Data: Write down the subject and message (you can even use tags!)
- Conditions: Product (key) + equals to (operator) + select your one time product (value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #5 Sending SMS to customers whose subscription was canceled due to involuntary churn
If the dunning tool moved a subscription into this status, you could quickly send a text message to the customer to increase the chances of reactivating the plan.
Ingredients
- Trigger: Subscription cancelled due to involuntary churn
- Action: Send SMS (make sure first to configure your Twilio app)
- Delay: Choose how many days/hours/minutes after the event took place the action will occur
- Action's Data: Write down the subject and message (you can even use tags!)
- Conditions: Product (key) + equals to (operator) + add each of your products (value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #6 Tagging customers after choosing to skip to specific products
Be proactive and keep an eye on those customers who, for whatever reasons, decided to pause their subscription, so you can take care of them in the future. But maybe, there is only one product which you don't want this rule to be effective.
Ingredients
- Trigger: Subscription skipped
- Action: Tag customer (create a tag as explained here)
- Action's Data: Choose a tag
- Conditions: Product (key) + not equals to (operator) + select product (value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #7 Email specific customers who canceled their subscription
Try to reactivate subscriptions by emailing customers with a determined purchase behavior after a certain period of time.
Ingredients
- Trigger: Subscription cancelled
- Action: Send email
- Delay: Choose how many days/hours/minutes after the event took place the action will occur
- Action's Data: Write down the subject and message (you can even use tags!)
- Conditions: 1) Lifetime value of customer (key) + greater than or equals to (operator) + establish a minimum of money spent on your store (value) / 2) Subscription order count (key) + less than or equals to (operator) + define a minimum of orders (value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #8 Set subscriptions from a particular product to auto-cancel after X cycles/orders
Want to promote subscriptions which will only last for a certain number of cycles/orders? There's no need to bother your customers asking to remember to cancel
Ingredients
- Trigger: Renewal success
- Action: Cancel subscription
- Conditions: 1) Product (key) + equals to (operator) + choose your product (value) / 2) Subscription order count (key) + equals to (operator) + define number of orders (value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #9 Add an extra item for loyal customers on their next shipping order
Spoil customers who have been subscribed for a certain period of time by adding an item to their next shipping order. You could also think of it as a free sample of another of your products... Who knows? They may even subscribe to a second box!
Ingredients
- Trigger: Order created
- Action: Add inventory item
- Action's Data: Choose your product (the one that should be added to the order)
- Conditions: 1) Subscription order count (key) + greater than or equals to (operator) + define number of orders (value) / 2) Product (key) + equals to (operator) + choose your product (value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #10 Retry renewal during the same day
If our current dunning tool doesn't fit your needs, you can set your own custom dunning and re-attempt any failed payment in a matter of hours.
Ingredients
- Trigger: Renewal failed
- Action: Retry renewal
- Delay: Choose how many days/hours/minutes after the event took place the action will occur
- Conditions: Product (key) + equals to (operator) + add each of your products (value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #11 Create a custom cut-off logic for adhoc billing cycles
Make sure all your customers get re-billed on the same day when on an adhoc basis to better organize your fulfillment
Ingredients
- Trigger: Subscription created
- Action: Change renewal date
- Action's Data: Choose if renewal must take place after X days/weeks/months and on what weekday or day of the month should occur
- Conditions: Product (key) + equals to (operator) + choose your product (value)
Bon appétit
Move renewal date back field stands for the period in which the action must be performed, considering 0 as the current period. Each higher value represents one more period.
Recipe #12 Tagging customers from a determined country
Easily classify customers based on location for further analysis and management.
Ingredients
- Trigger: Subscription created
- Action: Tag customer (create a tag as explained here)
- Action's Data: Choose a tag
- Conditions: Shipping country (key) + equals to (operator) + add countries from the list (value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #13 Email customers who opened a dispute
Communicate immediately with customers who did not recognize a charge from your store and reported it to their banks before the issue scales up.
Ingredients
- Trigger: Dispute created
- Action: Send email
- Delay: Choose how many days/hours/minutes after the event took place the action will occur
- Action's Data: Write down the subject and message (you can even use tags!)
- Conditions: None
Bon appétit
Recipe #14 Add a different SKU for trial than the one used in the subscription
Use different SKUs for a subscription product and automatically assign them depending if it is on trial or regular subscription
This recipe will require two actions and that the subscription product does not have any SKU assigned, as it will be assigned automatically.
1st action ingredients
- Trigger: Order created
- Action: Add inventory item
- Action’s data: Choose the SKU corresponding to the trial product
- Conditions:
1) Successful shipments count (key) + is equal to (operator) + 0 (value)
2) Product (key) + is equal to (operator) + product name (value)
2nd action ingredients
- Trigger: Order created
- Action: Add inventory item
- Action’s data: Choose the SKU corresponding to the subscription product
- Conditions:
1) Successful shipments count (key) + is equal to (operator) + 0 (value)
2) Product (key) +is equal to (operator) + product name (value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #15 Upsell higher priced plans to new subscribers through SMS messages
You can use automations to offer the higher priced plans through SMS messages by letting customers know they can switch to a different plan from the customer portal. You could add the customer portal URL to the body of the message.
Ingredients
- Trigger: Purchase complete
- Action: Send SMS (make sure to configure your Twilio app first)
- Delay: Choose how many days/hours/minutes after the event took place the action will occur.
- Action's Data: Write down the message (you can even use tags!)
- Conditions:
1) Purchase type (key) + is equal to (operator) + Purchase completed (value)
2) Product (key) +is equal to (operator) + product name (value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #16 Apply a coupon when the lifetime value of a customer exceeds $X
Increase your customer’s lifetime value (LTV) by automatically applying coupons after a certain number of renewals.
Ingredients
- Trigger: Renewal success
- Action: Apply coupon
- Action's Data: Select coupon (create a coupon as explained here)
- Conditions:
1) Lifetime value of customer (key) + greater than (operator) + establish a threshold for money spent on your store (value)
2) Product (key) +is equal to (operator) + product name (value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #17 Have cut-off dates before renewal dates on weekly Adhoc subscriptions.
The following example is for weekly billing terms in which customers subscribing on Wednesdays and before, their renewal date will be pushed to next week Thursday and for customers subscribing after Wednesday, the renewal date will be pushed to Thursday 2 weeks after the subscription is created.
With the previous example, Wednesday will work as a cut-off date and Thursday as the billing date, if you want to make it work bi-weekly and monthly, increase the number of weeks of the actions for 2, 3 and 4, 5 respectively.
Please note that the renewal dates will be changed on the 2nd order and you would need to handle the first order as a regular Adhoc subscription.
1st action ingredients
- Trigger: Subscription created
- Action: Change renewal date
- Action's Data: Choose if renewal must take place after X weeks and on what weekday or date of the month should occur
- Conditions:
1) Occurred at (key) + day of the week is before (operator) + choose day of the week (value)
2) Product (key) + equals to (operator) + choose your product (value)
2nd action ingredients
- Trigger: Subscription created
- Action: Change renewal date
- Action's Data: Choose if renewal must take place after X weeks and on what weekday or day of the month should occur
- Conditions:
1) Occurred at (key) + day of the week is after (operator) + choose day of the week (value)
2) Product (key) + equals to (operator) + choose your product (value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #18 Tag customers and apply credit balance when the lifetime value of a customer reaches X threshold
Tag customers so you can know which customers to apply credit balance to reward their loyalty after their lifetime value (LTV) reaches a certain amount.
Ingredients
- Trigger: Order created
- Action: Tag customer (create a tag as explained here)
- Action's Data: Choose a tag
- Conditions: Lifetime value of customer (key) + greater than (operator) + establish a threshold for money spent on your store (value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #19 Add a different SKU for each subscription plan.
Use different SKUs for a subscription product and automatically assign them depending on the plan selected by the customer.
This recipe requires that the subscription product does not have any SKU assigned, as it will be assigned automatically. An action for each subscription plan needs to be created.
Ingredients
- Trigger: Order created
- Action: Add inventory item
- Action’s data: Choose the SKU corresponding to the plan.
- Condition: Product (key) + equals to (operator) + choose your product plan(value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #20 Sending an email to customers after a refund.
Let your customers know when you have processed any refund to their account.
You need to leave conditions empty, so the automation triggers with any transaction refunded.
Ingredients
- Trigger: Transaction refund
- Action: Send email
- Delay: Choose how many days/hours/minutes after the event took place the action will occur
- Action's Data: Write down the subject and message (you can even use tags!)
Bon appétit
Recipe #21 Send free products on purchases made on certain months of the year.
Give seasonal free products when purchases are made on certain months i.e. all subscriptions purchased in each year's Q2.
Occurred at month is in condition lets you select multiple months among the year for the automation to be triggered.
Ingredients
- Trigger: Purchase complete
- Action: Create order
- Delay: Choose how many days/hours/minutes after the event took place the action will occur
- Action's Data: Select the product you'll like to add to the order
- Condition: Product (key) + equals to (operator) + choose your product plan(value)
- Condition: Occurred at (key) + month (operator) + choose the months in which the offer will be triggered(value)
Bon appétit
Recipe #22 Segmenting/tagging customers that are most likely to churn away
This one works in conjunction with our AI-powered Predictive churn feature. When used with automations, it becomes super powerful tool to help proactively prevent churn. Learn more about the Predictive churn here.
Tag/segment customers who have the highest predicted score for churning away.
Ingredients:
Trigger: Churn risk score changed
Action: Tag customer
Action's data: Set the tag previously created for this customer segment
Condition: Churn risk is greater than or equal to X%
Recipe #23 Send a targeted email (or SMS?) to the customer who is at high probability risk of cancelling their subscription
This one works in conjunction with our Predictive churn feature. You'll have to have that one enabled in order to be able to do this.
So it seems that some of your customer's cancellation risk score surpassed certain threshold. Let's email/SMS them to solicit any type of proactive feedback so we can action that. To spice things up for them, let's add a % discount OFF of their next order/payment if/when they do provide feedback.
Ingredients
Trigger: Churn risk score changed
Action: Send email
Action's data: Send a tailored email soliciting proactive feedback (offer discount on the next box or offer them a free item for providing feedback)
Condition: Churn risk is greater than or equal to X%
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