How Do I Manage Them?
Autoships
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Many Direct Sales Companies have some kind of auto-ship or a recurring order program their members or customers are participating in. For members, autoships typically include product, membership fees and other items as required. Customers on the other hand have some very special needs in this area.

Typically, in order to be considered a “Preferred Customer”, the company will require that the customer commit to a monthly shipment of product in exchange for receiving a discounted price on the company’s products. A customer’s recurring order will normally be set up for a monthly supply of a product.
Guess what? Members and Customers like to change their minds!
In order to empower your members and customers and give them a more satisfying user experience, they should be able to simply enable/disable the entire shipment, change which products will ship, update payment details, shipping addresses etc. by themselves without having to call customer service! Giving them this ability to do this on their own will make them happier, and will alleviate your customer service department from having to enter the changes for them.
Happy Members/Customers = Happy Life!
How does your company address the need for members and customers to self-manage automatic shipments?
Your software platform should have an Autoship Management Portal.
When looking at back-office software, the system you choose should be able to provide the tools for your customers and members to manage their auto-ships! Your customers should be able to manage every aspect of their automatic shipments without having to call your customer service department. These capabilities should include (at a minimum):
- Edit which products will be shipped
- Edit Payment Details
- Edit Shipping Address
- Enable or Disable the shipment, without cancelling it.
This minimal functionality should be a standard feature included with your software system. The software should also allow your members and customers to be able to update their order, ship frequency, and next shipment date without having the members make a call to corporate all the time.
Now what about your customers?
So now that we know having an Autoship Management Portal is of paramount importance for your members, what about your customer’s recurring orders?
- Do they have a way to manage their own recurring orders?
- Do they have to always call into corporate or call their sponsor to make a change to their autoship?
(This is question I get asked all the time during demos. More and more companies are wanting to make it easier for their customers, or preferred customers to self-manage their own autoships themselves.)
Giving your customers the ability to manage their own recurring orders will make it easier for both your customer service staff and the customer.
Our Solution
Here at Trinity Software we have a great solution that won’t cost you an arm and leg in custom programming!
Firestorm®, our flagship Direct Selling Management System, will allow your customers to not only manage their recurring orders, but have their own mini back office! We’ve built an amazing tool called “Autoship Manager” that is available for your distributors and customers.
Giving your customer access to this tool will allow them to make changes to their recurring order themselves. They can update the products for their order, change the ship frequency, and change the next shipment date along with many other items on the autoship. They no longer have to call customer support or contact their distributor to make that change. The following list shows a few of the things they can manage themselves by using the portal:
- Activate
- Deactivate
- View History
- Change Shipping Address
- Change Shipment Frequency (daily, weekly, monthly, annual, etc)
- Specify day of the month the order will ship
- Specify the date of the next shipment
- Specify Shipper (UPS, Fed-Ex, etc.)
- Products to be shipped
- Edit payment details
Many of our clients are taking advantage of this awesome feature because they realize the value in what it has to offer, and it doesn’t cost the company lots of money in custom programming. Having a robust customer program is a breeze when you empower customers to be able to handle everything on their own!
Give us a call today so that we can show you live demo on this great feature!