TJC: How to manage recurring payments effectively

In the late-1980s, television was the premier at-home shopping experience choice for consumers and growth has remained strong. The UK teleshopping market was estimated to have reached $ 2.14 Billion in 2018, as a result of the increasing number of dedicated channels, availability of alternate order options, and expansion of product catalogs. Television shopping continues to thrive today, despite the development of at-home competitors such as eCommerce and mCommerce platforms. But the introduction of new dynamic online shopping experiences has meant that online shopping channels have needed to adapt their own user experience to keep up with modern eCommerce best practice. Some of these experience upgrades have included platform diversification to a multi-channel experience and overhauling the checkout process to include alternative, flexible payment methods.

The process and the problem

An example of a shopping channel that has retained a strong customer base is TJC (formerly The Jewellery Channel). TJC offers customers that buy jewellery and other products online or over the phone the option of setting up a flexible payment plan when they make a purchase. TJC offers the option of 2-7 month recurring monthly payments to the consumers.

However, offering consumers the option of purchasing via a recurring payments plan comes with its own set of challenges. This includes the possibility for payments to fail once the recurring transaction plan has been set up and the products have been shipped to the customer. For TJC, it was a business-critical issue that this potential hindrance didn’t disrupt its ability to offer recurring payments. TJC turned to payments platform Paysafe and subscription management provider Vindicia, an Amdocs company, to prevent this from happening.

There are a number of reasons why a payment may fail that are recoverable. For example, a customer’s recurring transaction causes them to exceed a credit card limit, a card used to set up a recurring transaction is blocked by the issuer due to suspected fraudulent activity, or the card used to set up the recurring payment has subsequently expired. Being able to identify why the transaction has failed is essential to the recovery process. Vindicia’s experience handling millions of transactions worth billions of dollars provides a unique insight as to why transactions are failing, as well as options for recovery through its industry-leading Vindicia Retain technology.

Sharath Dorbala, Vindicia’s CEO, says: “By applying analytics to failed transactions, we’re able to ‘heal’ these transactions without disrupting the subscription service to the consumer. We apply subscription intelligence based on our vast data set of payment transactions to extract invaluable insights into the best way resolve terminally failed transactions, enabling TJC and its subscribers to continue the subscription relationship they both would like to keep”

This capability to reduce failed transactions is also key to the growing subscription model industry.

Simon Chandramani, VP Sales EU Card Processing at Paysafe Group, says: “In today’s digital age, the subscription economy is thriving. Consumers can subscribe to a vast array of online and physical services including TV and movies, music, fresh produce parcels, flower bundles and pet supplies. However, there are challenges when it comes to billing. By ensuring consumers can set up a subscription service easily as well as minimising the failed transaction rate once recurring payments plan has been authorised, merchants will be able to achieve great recurring revenue. Retailers will also have the time to focus on creating new innovative products and retain customer satisfaction. Without this, the subscription economy will never reach its full potential.”

The partnership: Recovering failed payments and revenue for TJC

Managing these types of payments with maximum effectiveness is not a task that can be solved by one company. Collaboration is needed across industries to ensure payments are being collected accurately and efficiently. Paysafe’s payments platform equips merchants with a diverse and efficient means of accepting payments from around the globe, for example taking payments for TJC through the phone or online, typically through both debit and credit cards.

Paysafe processes and controls the payments involved in both Vindicia’s Retain solution, as well as Vindicia Subscribe, which manages the entire customer lifecycle from customer acquisition, onboarding, promotions, billing, retention and more. The objective of the partnership is to enable merchants to successfully bill unprecedented volumes of recurring payment transactions by automatically resolving previously declined card payments. In this instance, the partnership has enabled TJC to successfully recuperate 35% of recurring transactions.

Retailers such as TJC are constantly evolving, developing new products and services as well as diversifying offerings. Often the sticking point for merchants like TJC that want to offer a recurring payments model is failed payment card transactions, which is frustrating for both the merchant and consumer, particularly when they can be so easily remedied. As we have seen with TJC, by working together and utilising each other’s strengths and expertise, Paysafe and Vindicia have been able to achieve a significant successful recovery rate. This has helped TJC to increase its revenue, reduce churn, enable seamless customer experiences, and extend customer lifetime value. With the tumultuous times retailers have been going through due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this has never been more important.  

This article was originally published in Direct Commerce magazine.