Membership Sites - How to recover expired credit cards

If you run a membership or recurring billing site, you know that a big problem is losing members through expired or changed credit cards. Card companies are now issuing literally hundreds of millions of new credit cards with chips in them because of new anti-fraud laws. When your customers get one of these new cards, your billing on the old card eventually stops and you lose revenue.

So here's the secret tool I use to overcome much of this problem: telephone.

I have a VA that helps with support. She now goes through the expired billings periodically and simply calls those people and offers to update their card so they don't lose their account. It's not a sales call - it's a courtesy call. I gave her a simple script she uses, and people thank her for taking care of it.

If your product is good, these customers will appreciate your "good service". Fact is, if they just got a new card, they've probably got to deal with updating that card in a lot of places. So you are doing them a favor by taking care of it with one quick call.

After doing this a few months, the money we recaptured was more than paying for the entire amount I was spending on the VA, including everything else she is doing for me, and this is now a new profit center.

Jeff