Curious if anyone has had success with subscription payment plans that go beyond a short timeframe (ie before tickets are printed and mailed to subscribers) but rather allow purchasers to spread the payments over the whole season? Aside from the accounting implications, I'm curious about managing expirations, delinquency, and the timing of printing tickets.
We currently allow subscribers to pay in 3 installments, but require them to be all paid off before printing their tickets. We'd really like to make it more of a true monthly payment plan, like Netflix, but with the ability to hold folks accountable for the full amount (more like buying a sofa with a payment plan). Very curious to talk to anyone who has ventured into this realm.
Thanks in advance for any insights!
A lot of the process is similar to Louise's post.
We have a 50% now, 50% later (no fee and it is usually Oct 15, but it depends on programming and campaign timelines) and a 6 payment plan option on the 15th of every month ($14 payment plan fee applies). We ask that the credit card they provide has an expiration date that is past their final payment and all of our communication say there is a $10 decline fee that applies for each month that a payment does not go through. The 6 payment plan option is only offered until the end of July as I want to make sure all payments are done by December so none of the payments go into the next season's campaign and we avoid any overlap. I arbitrarily chose the 15th of the month. I try to run payments before anyone else is in the system and preferred to only go in super early once (I'm not a morning person). This also allows us to make sure that everyone knows when to expect payments and that the payments are always in separate billing cycles. I also considered that most personal monetary obligations (rent, mortgage) occur at the end of the month, so I hoped to make the payments easier that way. I remote in from home to do the payments on the 15th, but you can always define it as the 15th or the next business day.
All payment options are available in all our avenues for season ticket orders, in-person, mail/fax and online. Orders are paid in full via invoice type so we can mail the tickets. By the time we mail the first half of their tickets, half or most of their payments have been made. We have email reminders that go out on the 9th/10th of the month to remind them to expect a charge or to contact us if they need to change their payment information.
We mail the the 1/2 of their tickets, plus any bonus options and pre-paid parking vouchers. The remaining tickets gets sent out after their final payment has been made. Generally we'll have smaller mailings starting July (our subscription campaign starts around Feb) as some subscriptions pay off and a bigger mailing after the Oct 15 50/50 payments are run.
We used to have big percentage decline, but this has gone down since we instituted the decline fee. If we encounter payment issues (multiple declined, usually 3-4, and they don't return calls), we give them a deadline to contact us by otherwise we cancel their subscription and refund any payments paid as a refund check. Any printed tickets will be invalidated at this point. If this happens multiple seasons (2-3) for one person (we currently have 2 on our list), we let them know that due to historical payment issues we are not able to offer them payment plans. Within a day or two, we email anyone that has declined for that month and send out a post card telling them to contact us due to an issue/question with their order. And then we work through the list with calls.
I'd be happy to go over further info if you are interested.
This is so great - thanks!