Understanding how Affinity highlights the customer's next order
Recharge designed the Affinity customer portal to streamline the customer experience, and focus on customers' orders.
This guide explains how each component works on the Affinity portal's entry page, and outlines any settings you must enable to maximize the customer experience.
- Recharge Checkout on Shopify
- Shopify Checkout Integration
Before you start
- Affinity is a no-to-low code solution designed for merchants to seamlessly configure. See Customizing the Affinity customer portal for customization steps.
- Some Affinity customizations require custom code, which is not supported by Recharge as per the design and integration policy. See using advanced customizations in Affinity with Affinity for information on advanced customizations. Visit working with third-party developers if you require developer assistance.
How it works
Often, the primary goal for a customer logging in to their portal is to manage their upcoming order, including:
- Rescheduling their upcoming order
- Adding additional products to their upcoming order
- Changing the product they're subscribed to
Affinity prioritizes the customer's next order, placing it at the forefront of the customer experience and making it easy for customers to execute common tasks.
When a customer logs in to the Affinity customer portal, they're immediately shown the Affinity entry page, which adapts its content based on the customer's context.
For example, customers facing outstanding issues with existing orders are given tips and tools to troubleshoot and resolve those issues, while the page shifts focus if a customer is considered inactive, making it easy for customers to reactivate a cancelled subscription or start a new one.
Active subscriber view
The active subscriber view is the typical view for active subscribers without order errors.
The active subscriber view is made up of two types of components:
- Base components: Standard page components available to all active subscribers
- Dynamic components: Dynamic elements presented based on specific customer criteria
Base components
Next order quick actions
The next order quick actions make it easy for customers to take date-related actions on their upcoming order. Customers can choose from the following buttons:
- Send Now to expedite the order and have their next order processed in that moment
- Reschedule to postpone the order to a later date
- Skip to skip the delivery until the next cycle
The skip functionality changes slightly for orders containing one-time products. Customers cannot skip their one-time products, so the product is permanently moved to the next available date.
All orders scheduled for the same date are listed on this page, even if a customer has multiple orders scheduled but sent to different addresses (for example sending one product to their home address, and the other to their business address). Any action performed in this section affects all orders.
Available actions
There are three main actions available to customers, the option to send now, the option to reschedule, or the option to skip their upcoming order. Several factors determine what buttons are available to customers:
-
Customer portal settings: Ensure that the following customer portal settings are configured to allow customers to update their orders:
- Edit upcoming order date: The options to reschedule or order the product immediately are only available if this setting is enabled
- Skip shipment: The ability to skip the next shipment is only available if this setting is enabled
- Prepaid products: Recharge does not show any of the three buttons for prepaid products. Customers cannot order the prepaid product immediately, or reschedule their order. They can skip an order containing prepaids. This option is displayed inside the order summary component. You must have the customer portal setting Allow skip shipments on prepaids enabled for this option to work.
- Contextual feature control: You can work with your developer to employ contextual feature controls, and enable or disable certain actions based on context. For example, you could enable the skip option on the subscription details page, but disable it on the next order page. See Contextual feature control for more information.
Date display
The date displayed under "Your next order" lets the customer know when Recharge will process their next order, and when they can expect to be charged again. You can only display the next order charge date, not the delivery date.
See date customization in the Recharge Dev Docs for customization options.
Order summary
Give customers insights into the products included on their upcoming order, information on the delivery location, and payment method.
Individual order summaries are displayed if a customer has multiple orders scheduled for the same date.
Customers can interact with this section to make the following updates and changes:
- Edit address: Customers can edit their address in the order summary section and have that address apply to all future orders.
- Add a discount: Customers can apply a discount to their order through the order summary section. The discount is associated with the order’s and applies to current and future orders according to the discount rules you set. Make sure to enable the Remove discount from customer addresses after discount limit has been reached discount setting to ensure the discount is removed after it reaches its usage limit.
-
Edit payment method: There are two options available to merchants using the Shopify Checkout Integration to allow customers to update their payment method:
- Send edit link: This sends the customer a link to permanently update the payment record on file.
- Use a saved payment method: Allow customers to select an existing payment method saved to their account. This new method is used to process all future orders.
Several factions determine what customers can change about their subscriptions through the order summary section:
-
Customer portal settings: Ensure that the following customer portal settings are configured to allow customers to update aspects of their subscription
- Edit shipping address: The Edit Address link only appears if this setting is enabled
- Allow customers to input discount code on customer portal: You must enable this setting so that customers can add a discount code to their orders
- Prepaid: Recharge does not display information about the order total, or the options to add a discount code or edit the payment method for prepaid shipment orders
Cross-sell carousel
Use the cross-sell carousel as a unique opportunity to highlight new products to customers that they can quickly add to their upcoming order.
The carousel is only visible when you have the option to Add products to subscriptions enabled in your customer portal settings.
Products available for purchase through the carouse are determined by the products available for purchase customer portal setting. Recharge features the first 12 products from this catalog in the carousel by default. Use Affinity's advanced configuration options for additional control over the featured products.
Credits
Recharge displays a credit section to customers in the Affinity customer portal if you have Credits enabled.
Customers can view their available balance and have the option to apply these credits to their upcoming orders.
Dynamic components
Recent order
A recent order component displays in the portal if Recharge has processed an order for the customer within the last 24 hours. This component is available above the next order quick actions section.
Other active subscriptions
Affinity displays any active subscriptions not part of an upcoming order on the active subscriber view so that customers can easily consolidate and manage their subscriptions.
Customers see a specific card highlighting products missing from the next upcoming order. Customers can click Manage to add the product to their next upcoming order.
Alternate states
Recharge displays alternative page components depending on where the customer is in their journey.
Order in progress
Recharge displays the order in progress component after a customer clicks Send Now for a brief period while recalculating the next order information.
Charge errors
When there's a problem processing an order, linked subscriptions are put on hold until the error is resolved. Customer actions may be limited depending on what caused the charge error.
Affinity prioritizes these issues for customers by highlighting them in the portal and providing customers with resolution steps.
Error type |
Description |
Example |
Payment method errors |
If the charge error stems from an issue with the customer's payment method, Affinity prompts users to update their payment method on file. Affinity also displays a Retry button so customers can try the charge again once they've updated their information.
|
|
Inventory errors |
Inventory errors may arise for customers depending on your inventory settings. Affinity displays messaging to customers highlighting the affected product, allowing customers to skip the order, or swap to an available product. |
|
Other errors |
Charge errors may occur that are outside of the customer's control. In these instances, Affinity presents a message to customers advising them to contact the store for assistance, ensuring that the issue is addressed. |
Inactive subscriber
Affinity encourages customers without active subscriptions to rejoin by either reactivating a previous subscription or creating a new one.
Reactive a subscription
Customers can click on the Reactivate link and reactivate their subscription with one click. The customer's previous subscription is restarted with the same options, and Recharge uses the previous delivery cycle to calculate the next order date.
You must enable the option to allow subscribers to reactivate subscriptions in their customer portal in your customer portal settings for this feature to work.
Start a new subscription
Inactive subscribers see the cross-sell carousel component, if you have it enabled, offering customers the opportunity to begin a new subscription with the recommended products.
The next order date for the customer is the current date if a customer reactivates their subscription by purchasing it through the carousel.