Troubleshooting customers with consecutive subscription orders
Sections
Issue
The customer had orders for subscription items come in one after the other.
Environment
Resolution
There are a variety of reasons why a customer may have multiple orders process consecutively. The customer's history log is the first place to look when investigating this type of issue as it shows the actions that were taken on a customer's account.
Option 1 - Multiple checkout orders
If you are working with a new customer who has experienced multiple orders, the most likely issue is a slow or interrupted connection on their end. If the customer is going through the checkout and clicks the checkout button multiple times it can cause multiple orders to be created. This issue occurs rarely but is possible.
In these cases, review the orders on your ecommerce platform and on Recharge. If the customer only intended to create a single subscription order you can cancel the duplicate subscription and cancel the order on your ecommerce platform.
Option 2 - Order now button
If you use the Novum, Prima, or Affinity customer portal themes, existing customers who manage their subscriptions through the customer portal have access to an Order Now button. This button can appear in different locations depending on the themes layout.
Customers who are updating their payment method due to an error may not realize that the system will automatically retry the existing charge and may use the Order Now button to prompt the order. In these cases the error charge may also process causing two orders.
On the customer's history log, orders that were processed using Order Now show as being paid by the customer:
Where regular recurring orders appear as paid by Recharge Admin:
The duplicate order can be cancelled on your ecommerce platform if needed.
Option 3 - Multiple address profiles
Customers can organize their subscriptions into address profiles to manage delivery. Address profiles can be created through the checkout or the customer portal and can be for different delivery addresses or the same address.
Two orders will be created if the customer has two profiles that happen to be on the same schedule. When reviewing the customer's profile on the merchant portal you can see the separate addresses and adjust for future orders if necessary.
Option 4 - Changes to the order schedule
Customers have the ability to manage their subscriptions through the customer portal. If the option to change the date is enabled for the customer, they may have gone in and adjusted their order schedule. If the change was made to adjust a subscription right before processing it may split orders for the same date.
Review the customer's history log to determine the actions taken by the customer to confirm.
If the subscription frequencies match, future orders will be combined by default moving forward. Use the Upcoming Orders section to confirm.
