What to do when customers' credit card payment fails?
On Amezmo, one of our managed Laravel hosting business customers subscription went into an Unpaid state. Stripe automatically attempts to charge the account for up to 5 or so times.
They automatically send an email to the person when the payment fails. It failed 5 times, so Stripe stopped trying to charge the card. Naturally, I reached out to the customer to follow up and they said they saw the emails, but were out the entire week. Further, they said they used a virtual card which allows 1 charge only.
I covered their $20 balance and asked them how their project was going. Question, what would you have done in this situation?
After reading his email again, it seems he's not fully decided if he's going to use Amezmo, and will know at the end of the month ( when the second payment is due).
If your product is providing them value, they should pay for it.
If it is not providing them value then they should cancel and leave.
Automated nags were telling them they need to fix it. If they can't be bothered to pull their card out of their pocket then service should stop. That's a product learning moment for you ... is it providing them enough value each day when it is removed from service does it inspire action, do they BUY it and fix the problem. Or just shrug it off and try something else. You don't really learn anything by just giving them free months of service.
I'll extend trials of a product but not fully featured versions.
If it's good, if it works, if it provides you value - Pay me.
Seems like a safe tester, if he's interested he'd need to update new payment details...
Don't sweat special cases? 🧘
Yea I agree ☝️
What does "Don't sweat special cases?" mean? I think I forgot to mention that this customer was on a special $60 credit, but the credit ran out.
I think we're saying that this example you described in an edge case and doesn't require you coming up with a whole process/system to handle it. Just use your best judgement and do it case-by-case.