On this episode, we talk with John Roman, CEO of BattlBox, a monthly subscription for receiving hand-picked outdoor, survival, EDC and other cool gear.
Transcript from video:
0:04 hello listeners and welcome to another episode of subscription scaled I'm your host Nick Frederick with me today is
0:11 John Roman who is the CEO of Battlbox John welcome to the show thanks for having me excited to be here awesome
0:17 well we're glad to have you on here today and you know you guys have been around for a little while and I'm sure there's a lot that we can learn but uh
0:23 you know for for listeners that maybe aren't so familiar tell us a little bit uh more about your background and how
0:28 you came to uh be a battle box sure so man my background did not suggest that I
0:36 would be in e-commerce specifically subscription um so my background this is my third
0:44 career um to my uh parents super proud got done with with
0:50 University and I decided I was going to be a professional poker player that was career one it was short-lived it was
0:57 about four and a half years and then it's a pretty good run though yeah I mean it's it's it it paid the bills for
1:04 for four and a half years um so career Two um I went into sales B2B sales
1:12 um and went started at the bottom of a publicly traded company selling
1:18 technology and um close to a decade I I spent in that in
1:23 that space uh towards the end of that I started investing and I'm starting to build a
1:29 network and started investing in companies that would cross my desk that I would hear about and Battlbox was one
1:36 of them um so the uh gentleman that came up with idea with the idea Daniel went to school
1:43 with them um and learned about Battlbox about a
1:48 week after launch invested in it and um the the plan was kind of uh
1:56 advisement limited role we're talking maybe a couple hours uh
2:01 um a month and it quickly turned into a weird conundrum where
2:07 you know I was working 120 hours of a week 60 for my normal job
2:15 that's paying the bills and 60 for battle box and the 120 was it was
2:20 growing so I had to make a decision um I have to pick one I couldn't I
2:26 couldn't do both so I made the decision to to jump in a battle walks full time
2:32 that's awesome well yeah so other than working more hours than any human should what what was the impetus that told you
2:38 that yeah I need to throw both of my feet into Battlbox so I had just made in in um 26 in so so
2:47 Battlbox we launched it in February 2015. so I was um an owner at that point
2:55 and um fast forward to the beginning of 2016. I started uh I I changed jobs and
3:03 I went to the startup and um their annual revenue was I think like 11
3:10 or 12 million um but they were growing and my role was to grow it pretty significantly and
3:19 you know sometimes you're oversold an idea concept I got in realized the tech
3:25 probably was a couple years farther than away and it was going to be it was it
3:30 wasn't going to be an easy easy uh Journey meanwhile battle box the the
3:36 side hustle um the in the beginning of 2016 first
3:42 quarter and using that as the trajectory and what's this here going to look like we were going to be eight figures
3:49 um so we were right in line with the the company that I was working for that had a bunch of phantom equity in right it
3:57 was only going to be worth anything if if we were acquired so it was at that point
4:02 they're both the same size one I have meaningful actual equity in one's kind of fun
4:09 and it was uh it was a no-brainer I just had to get the blessing from the wife
4:15 um and once once I had that it was it was Off to the Races
4:20 what was so I think you said Daniel uh was the name of the founder what was you
4:26 know what sparked his idea or the thought that there was a market for you know this kind of product and maybe
4:32 again for those that don't know talk a little bit more about what the product actually sure so so battle box at the
4:38 time back then was um survival and tactical gear delivered monthly so think of fire starter to uh
4:47 premium high end knife um those those were the the types of
4:52 products and the the idea um it's funny when ideas like this
4:58 common when hearing the stories his fiance at the time was getting a Birchbox which is you know women's
5:06 um health and beauty products small sample sizes and he'd watch her every month
5:12 get this birch box and he'd see this like excitement and process and
5:17 experience and he wanted that for himself he's an Outdoorsman so he went
5:22 online and couldn't find it as simple as that was like well I'm going to come up with idea and you know
5:30 within um short order a couple of weeks we had a website on a platform called create
5:37 Joy which we're no longer on um but it was a very simple templated
5:43 easy get it up I mean you're selling for a month before you even have to ship anything so back then it was the barrier
5:51 to entry was very very very minimal um you could almost launch and then
5:57 figure out if it was a product Market fit afterwards and yeah it was as simple as that he found
6:03 something he couldn't find for himself to buy so he he came up with the idea
6:09 and it's obviously a lot different than it is we've we've transformed into a
6:14 much different brand from where we were back then but yeah yeah okay let's talk about that a little bit talk about kind
6:20 of the evolution of the product itself I mean you guys have several I think was it four different types of boxes or
6:26 subscriptions that you offer now like talk us through that Evolution sure so so when we launched we had that we had
6:32 the same four tiers basic Advanced prune Pro Plus they stack on top of each other so if you if you got the Pro Plus you'll
6:39 get everything from the basic the advanced the pro and then the additional item with Pro Plus
6:44 so prices were a little bit less back then just um you know the reality of inflation
6:50 we've had to we've had to raise prices the interesting thing is when we when we
6:56 launched it initially we really felt like basic at the time 25 a month was
7:02 going to be The Sweet Spot majority of customers are going to be there we'd have the one in the 50 or the 100 and
7:08 maybe a handful in the 150. uh but the reality is even back then
7:14 um the numbers changed a little bit back then off the Jump about a third of our
7:19 customers were going in the Pro Plus the 150 a month box now present day it's
7:25 roughly 46 of our base um and your highest tier and we're one
7:30 170 a month now plus sales tax because we have to charge it now and like the Uber majority of states and um
7:39 plus shipping so it ends up being based on your state around 200 a month but every that's everybody's in that in that
7:45 tier so yeah I mean the evolution
7:50 we took a interesting approach so part of the go-to market strategy was we we
7:58 sent out a lot of the boxes to YouTubers and other you know um
8:07 influencers and um we just wanted to get that content out there of showing this box and what we found it's funny to to
8:16 date this is such a cringe thing to say now but at the time we had a pre-purchase survey
8:22 um which is like why would you have a roadblock towards purchasing uh but we
8:28 had a pre-purchase survey tell us how you found out about us before you actually completed the transaction and
8:34 we had all your usual suspects Facebook Twitter Instagram but we had an other and
8:39 people were clicking the other about a quarter of them were clicking either and writing
8:45 um this gentleman uh influencer named current 1776 guy named Brandon current
8:51 and we quickly looked at like our spreadsheet of who we were sending our comp box to he wasn't on there
8:58 um he was a paying customer paying 150 a month and he was then going on YouTube and doing a review he had a full-time um
9:05 job and uh the HVAC space uh for decades he had a career and at night time his
9:12 his side also was putting out this content and our customers were really
9:18 identifying with him and they really were they just they were eating his
9:24 content that they liked him a lot uh super personable guy great camera presence but
9:30 he was also like this perfect battle box customers well and we made this
9:37 so it started off Susie identified we said hey we're gonna send you a boxer free moving forward keep doing the
9:43 reviews and uh a few months went by and we said hey Brandon gotta keep doing the reviews we're gonna
9:50 give you 500 a month now just keep doing the reviews boxes still free you have to do this and then the next
9:57 conversations hey do you want to quit your job move your family down to Georgia and do this full-time we have
10:02 this crazy idea right now I was just doing one one monthly Box review but
10:08 we've said the thought process was we wanted to really lean into content
10:14 um we we were already building uh this community via VIA just the battle box customers
10:22 but the content piece we just saw that it was resonating so well we wanted to okay well Brandon's
10:28 full-time part of the team yeah we can do the Box review but we can also pump out all kinds of other content in the
10:34 same Outdoor Adventure space and and that's that's what we did so he came on
10:40 full time and we went off to the races again it's changed a lot you know his first day he was uh cameraman
10:48 uh Talent video editor it was part of the table he was doing it on himself now
10:53 we were fortunate we have a um we we have a few video editors and we have a
10:59 larger team that is a so we're able to really pump out content but at the time
11:04 it was it was just him but we kept kept pushing this content piece and kept pushing on community
11:10 building and we started to see a lot of our success from that
11:16 um you look at uh and this is probably this is so much true now in today's economic climate but
11:23 it was true back then as well you look at a product on the need want scale and you know unfortunately Battlbox some
11:30 could argue it's it's on the Need side but for a lot they're going to argue it's on the want side it's not Mission critical it's not toothpaste or oil
11:38 paper or food um it's it's not a necessarily an essential and when something is closer
11:44 on the watt scale consumers really want to identify with
11:49 that brand they want to buy from brands with their disposable income that they
11:55 feel some kind of connection to in the easiest way to do that is is through community building so when Roy just
12:01 leaned leaned into that um and continued building content we fast
12:08 forward um it took several years to do and there's a lot of rejection along the journey but we had a Netflix TV show
12:16 um Netflix original series called Southern survival it's literally
12:21 us testing product to determine if it goes in a battle box which is basically
12:27 a commercial and um that combo so that premiered in July 2020 which was a few months into
12:34 the pandemic when right um econ brands are already striving I'm driving and uh
12:41 it was just a a perfect storm both of this back to back and it really just exponentially grew us
12:47 one so it sounds like that that that's just kind of just the core of your go to market is is that community and
12:54 everybody who kind of comes into that kind of seeing Battlbox right in the middle of it absolutely so um you'll
13:03 you know relatively we're we're a decent decent sized company um but some of our Behavior with the
13:10 community is very unusual so we a few years ago we we had a bulletin board very Reddit ask
13:17 um group that was for for members only and we now we converted that migrated
13:23 that over to a Facebook group which um some people aren't crazy about Facebook groups but it works for us so
13:30 if you're an active subscriber you can be in that Facebook group and not everybody joins not everybody sees the
13:36 value or has the time or wants to wants to be a part of the community some people just want the gear but if you're
13:41 in that community and not everybody is I think we have maybe seven eight thousand members in there
13:46 um but in that Facebook group earlier this morning I was in there
13:52 chatting it up with people in comments um there's not really a member of our
13:57 leadership team that isn't in there in some sort of regular Cadence interacting with customers
14:03 um it's it's the ultimate accountability too like if we if we drop the ball and a
14:09 product is lackluster not exciting or maybe we didn't bet a product low enough and included in the Box
14:16 um we've created and it's a it's a double-edged sword um but we've created this this culture
14:22 where customers are are comfortable tagging me in a post
14:27 which is that's awesome it's awesome it's also um sometimes there's some anxiety around
14:33 that we had uh sure we had a product in the last box that that I got tagged in
14:39 multiple times and um but it forced it it forced him accountability and from transparency and
14:46 I looked at what they were saying and I we my team reached out to the vendor and
14:52 clarified and I got to come back to them with hey we heard you we listened here's
14:58 the information we found out and you just don't get that with with brands in general right it's easy it's easy when
15:05 you're a one-man shop and you know there's no other team members and you're not scaling something to significance
15:11 whether that's seven eight or nine figures but to have that interaction it's also such a good feeling like to
15:18 interact with the actual customers that are making you able to live um live this dream of a job yeah you
15:25 know it's interesting I mean we talk about this a lot on this show but that that power of community that
15:31 subscription brands have because they're they're they're not just a product they're kind of around a concept or idea
15:37 or or just a group in and of themselves that kind of have a common cause is so much different different than
15:43 subscribe and save or something like that where you're just getting a product on repeat no matter what it is right like that's just a vendor selling a
15:50 product this is about people who care about the outdoor survival whatever right that are are in living breathing
15:57 that every single day and transactional companies cannot compete with that right that's that's just not something they do
16:03 so you guys being in the middle of that you know from the leadership group on down I I mean that just shows even your
16:09 customers how dedicated you are to that right and spot on yeah it's a really good point so it to us it's all about
16:16 the customer experience um we have a huge value prop they're
16:22 spending called 200 after sales tax and shipping for this product and it's probably if they Source it on their own
16:28 it could be 300 350 right that's a nice value prop we never lead with that we
16:34 don't really talk about it too much occasionally you might see it on our site when we're doing an a b or
16:39 multivariate testing or we might see something in an ad but it's by no means what we lead with and it's such a it
16:46 would be an easy easy thing to lead with it's a great value prop spend 200 get 50
16:51 more um but we but we avoid that because we want to make it more about the experience and that's just icing on the
16:58 cake but by taking that approach it's it arguably is it's tough to compete with right
17:04 well even even though you're giving products at a discount right your customers don't really know what they're
17:10 going to get each month so you guys have to be damn sure that you're going to deliver value to these uh you know your
17:16 subscribers each month I'm sure you feel like you get it wrong sometimes but at the same time you know the Lifeboat of
17:23 your company is is making sure that you get this right right yeah and and so and and that's kind of
17:29 uh we're very transparent with that that we are humans we we aren't perfect we are literally putting things in place
17:37 with learnings on how to improve um and we we started this year
17:43 um every so every uh monthly box is called a mission for us so we're sending
17:48 out we just we just completed shipping on Mission 98. um and starting at the beginning of this
17:55 year so I I guess 90 95 on every box uh moving forward has at
18:03 least one item in it out of that you know six to seven items typically that are in the box has at least one item
18:09 that's a customer recommendation one of our customers actually submitted
18:14 that we have a few ways for them to do it submitted this product to us we got samples we tested it we hope thank
18:22 goodness Rebrand negotiate a price that made sense for a business standpoint and then we send it out everybody and we'll
18:27 highlight it in that in the um booklet hey this is from
18:33 Charlie from Chicago yeah it's it's funny that's awesome yeah I mean not
18:39 only well number one you're Outsourcing procurement that's pretty cool but number two you know that what that does
18:46 for customer engagement has got to be tremendous yeah I mean it and it's it's
18:53 it serves so many purposes it really is something where it's pretty exciting
18:58 just to be able to take tangible take customer feedback like that and actually implement it and it's it's because of
19:05 the transparency it's obvious like you could go to the members only group and see where that customer submitted that
19:11 item so it's a pretty it's just a pretty cool experience but certainly well you touched on this a
19:18 little bit you said you launched that Series right right in the middle of covet there most of the uh
19:26 Online subscription physical good companies that I've talked to during cobit you know it was absolute hockey
19:31 stick right um You said that you know maybe you guys lean a little bit more towards a one item that I have to have type of item
19:39 but what happened to you guys you know throughout kova did you see just the huge spike in demand that other Ecom
19:45 subscription companies saw yeah we we did um so it started in in March March of
19:52 2020 all of a sudden we were able to acquire customers for um better CPAs
19:57 we're getting more organic um literally any metric you're trying to scale and grow with was looking better
20:04 um it's we we were unique that it didn't happen to us um sending sending out to our adventure
20:11 gear fared while we another brand we have carnivore club uh which is monthly artisanal Meats cured shelf Stables I
20:18 think salamis prosciutos that was that business um more than doubled in in the covid
20:26 period because needs delivered to your door like that's like literally the a
20:32 pandemic perfect especially cured meats right absolutely so yeah we we we saw
20:39 the growth um we knew that at some point there had to be a a normalization though so we
20:45 just continued investing in the the the content and Community piece just simply
20:51 because um we we want to grow
20:57 um we're we're acquiring new customers organically as well um just to be less dependent on
21:03 um the Facebooks The Meadows of the world right I mean I'm sure every a lot of people listening to this
21:09 know about the iOS issue right like that cause a huge headache for so many Brands
21:15 and people that were all in and 90 of their traffic was coming from Facebook or Instagram they were in trouble
21:23 um so a couple of things one we've always been Diversified not always but for the past
21:29 five years we we try to not have a single lead Source greater than
21:35 um than a sixth which 16.6 percent now we might have a campaign scaling that's
21:41 doing amazing right and in the short term it might scope it might be it might be 40 50 of our new acquisition but were
21:49 in in the in the longer run when you normalize the data we're not trying to have any single lead Source being be
21:56 being greater than a six well let's talk about those channels for a second what what channels are working
22:02 for you guys and where do you see the trend going right what what of those do you see kind of you're going to invest
22:08 more maybe time and effort and resources in or maybe ones that you're looking to Sunset sure
22:14 um so you know we we thought we were late to the game with Tick Tock we jumped into
22:21 Tick Tock pretty hard in uh February 2021 so a little over two years ago it
22:29 um the first year was was really difficult we weren't seeing much success and then
22:34 we saw this like we some little wins along the way but then we eventually saw this Tipping Point where it went from
22:40 not even a top five source for us to now it's constantly battling for the number one spot
22:46 um with that YouTube Perez has been been a major major Channel
22:54 um for a couple of reasons one we sent out so many so many boxes we're getting
23:00 all this all these reviews and we're putting out content and then really what
23:06 we saw call it a little over a year ago when
23:11 um alphabet and made a both Google and Facebook both were concerned with Tick Tock and the steam it was
23:18 getting their algorithms both started playing really nice to short form video
23:24 content um YouTube shorts and Instagram Instagram reels and once um both of them
23:32 started treating it like it was a little bit better than traditional content we were already producing this short form
23:39 for tick tock so we already had the content so we started posting across on
23:44 all platforms and that really gave us a boost on on YouTube a substantial piece
23:50 on YouTube we were gaining about 500 subscribers a month slow and steady for
23:57 years we were at about 50 a little over 50 000 subscribers on there and when we
24:03 doubled down and leaned in hard on the YouTube shorts uh I think this
24:09 we're over six hundred thousand we might be over 650 000 subscribers on YouTube right now
24:16 um which is which is to me insane and Tick Tock we have a little bit more
24:21 um I think we're 750 000 both were trying to get both to over a million
24:27 this year that's kind of our our short-term goals for both but
24:32 Facebook and Instagram still they're still in the Wheelhouse they're not going anywhere for us um
24:38 it's just they're just a little bit more of a challenge these days what's your sense of those you know tremendous
24:44 subscriber volume across those uh those platforms what's your sense of how many of those are transacting with you either
24:50 buying a subscription or buy I think you guys saw one all products as well right you have the e-commerce site
24:55 um how many of those are actually do you think you're you're monetizing so
25:00 not not as many as we would hope for so the the organic approach is so much different when it when you're looking at
25:07 metrics and you know you're looking at uh you know a traditional paid Facebook
25:12 ad where you're you you want this um CPC uh or CPN that you're comfortable
25:18 with and you expect that you need to convert two percent of that traffic um because it's targeted traffic
25:25 um the organic piece is it's a little bit of a slower slower burn and they not
25:31 as many convert some people are just fans but it's it it ends up
25:36 accomplishing the same thing but it's a fraction it's a fraction of that audience
25:42 um it's not even comparable to like the normal stuff we do from advertising I'm
25:48 sure you as the CEO see those tremendous numbers and are constantly thinking about hey how can I open up that fossil
25:54 a little bit more and kind of kind of get them over in there is there anything in particular that's worked for for doing that for getting them in
26:00 um no so I mean you know we we don't we're using all these channels
26:06 um the content isn't we're not hard selling we're not saying buy this product now there's yeah there are there
26:12 are the occasional sales videos and and sales content but it's it's it's the
26:18 exception not the rule and it's um it's just a softer softer approach and we
26:25 have content on our site a bunch of art we do um a dozen articles a month on just
26:31 stuff about the outdoors and adventuring camping and hiking and um we're we have
26:36 videos and you can see all the past boxes on our site so we do have stuff that's that's light
26:43 um light ctas to get people to our site um once they get to our site though it's
26:49 it's normally Commerce right we're it's it's all of the the normal funnels and
26:55 we're trying to close them and there's product abandonment and collection abandonment and SMS abandonment and
27:02 whatever whatever you could think of we're trying so at that point once we get them in there
27:08 um on this site and they're in our ecosystem it's it's normal normal rules of of the game
27:15 okay so then kind of going towards the the end of the cycle here what are you guys seeing in terms of lifetime value
27:20 like how how long are your members staying and then maybe let's just talk a little bit about retention too right what are you guys doing when you know
27:27 there is customer breakage very for either voluntary or involuntary reasons what kind of tactics do you guys have in
27:33 place sure so so we typically see our um duration of a customer being
27:39 um a little over seven months now our our LTV and I guess people
27:46 LTD lifetime value are you looking at that as like top line revenue Associated from a customer or profit it's a really
27:54 good question I've had some healthy debates with the pricing experts around how to look at that and you know looking
28:00 at it is just top line revenue it's a metric but if it you know if the cost of
28:05 product delivery and acquisition costs is 99 of that then who gives a crap right it's like well it doesn't really
28:12 matter that much so you know usually against at least some gross margin I I
28:18 think is the most valuable so we um so if we're talking
28:24 um lifetime value from a spend perspective um our customers spend right at right
28:29 under a thousand dollars 990 ish um slight fluctuations but poor 980.992
28:37 and yeah it's it's it's pretty cool um so so
28:44 675 to 700 of it is subscription revenue and the other 300 and change is one time
28:52 ancillary products so just we have about 500 excuse on our site
28:58 um that aren't aren't subscription based now when we're talking about um margin we're typically uh it's it's
29:05 about 300 in in profit um after after the death settles on
29:10 everything yeah that's that's still healthy that's that's pretty good well we'll talk a
29:15 little bit too about retention on the subscription side right when maybe what we probably need to address
29:22 volunteering and voluntary separately but yeah uh if if it's a customer saying hey you know just coming in to cancel
29:28 are you guys doing anything to try to save or what's your philosophy around hey make it easy frictionless let them
29:34 cancel because that increases the likelihood that they're going to come back I mean how do you guys view that sure so so we went down down the rabbit
29:42 hole of retention both both tight and both passive and active churn we went
29:48 down this Rabbit Hole pre-covet um when it wasn't it wasn't cool back then people weren't really talking about
29:55 it then um but we we spent and we're still honing in and we make improvements every
30:01 couple of months to our current process um so I I do agree that it should be
30:07 easy to cancel if you if you make it difficult they have to call a number if if it becomes problematic that person
30:15 isn't put yourself in their shoes they're not going to want to return ever and given an opportunity they might talk
30:21 negatively about your brand um so so we we don't make it super
30:26 difficult we do have um so when we're talking about active churn so a battle Box customer has has their
30:32 dashboard they log into their account um they see you know past orders and
30:38 they have kind of a a a dashboard of things they can changes they can make
30:44 um so when that pops up there's a cancel button on the bottom right they hit that
30:50 um so what happens is next is dependent on a few things so we
30:57 um we do have some some calm retention offers to keep customers but they have
31:03 to check uh certain criteria to see that so they have to have over a certain amount of renewals with us first
31:10 um they also have have to have never done one of these retention offers previously
31:16 um if if if their renews are down and they've or they've already done one of
31:22 these offers before they click cancel it's going to ask them a simple um why with you know five different
31:28 options and then click submit in your dot subscription canceled
31:34 um if if uh you know you've had several renewals and you haven't done one of these retention offers previously we're
31:41 going to position um in in it's depending on what they're doing we have about five different
31:46 options at any given time but we swap stuff out on when we're testing of some
31:52 sort of retention offer to to keep keep that person um it could be a free item it could be a
31:57 discount off their next box um depending on their behavior it might just tell them hey did you know you can
32:03 actually just skip a month instead of having to cancel um so a bunch of different options it's
32:09 it's something we're actually putting some stuff in place hopefully by the end of this month to take
32:16 um to take it to a next level um we'll we'll swap and we'll put we'll
32:22 want to better understand why they're canceling first so that we can really have a Taylor solution based on based on their answer
32:29 that's more in line with with meeting meeting the needs of the problem right
32:35 um if it's a monetary issue maybe give them some other frequencies or a a
32:40 discount um but if it's something else we can address that too so well it's I would
32:47 give us it's probably more our current um churn active churn dashboard
32:53 retention tool I would say is probably better than most
32:59 um at this point but I think there's serious room for improvement um because if you can really customize
33:06 it even further based on why that customer is there today wanting to cancel
33:11 um I think It ultimately leads to a better customer experience and even if you don't get even if they you let them
33:17 cancel and they cancel that day you still made it easy um but you're also getting insights that
33:22 could be used maybe to position uh offering to them later that might make sense or it could be learnings that are
33:30 um of of maybe substance and size and we need to say okay we have this many people customers canceling for this
33:37 specific reason maybe it's a US problem and not a customer problem so excited about that
33:44 um when it when it comes to passive churn uh I hate passage churn but it is it is
33:51 what it is um so we we go we we renew all customers
33:56 on the 15th of the month so from the 15th to the 26th we're going through the normal Dunning process
34:03 um they're going to get in that in that uh that window a 12-day window they're
34:09 going to get um five emails from us and a text message
34:14 um one of the emails is from our from Luke our head of customer service um I believe one of them's for me one of
34:21 them's from Brandon car in the face of our brand all all in ones from the warehouse guys wanting to know what what
34:28 are you doing with your box uh but it's very all all the emails are very on brand
34:34 um it's it's humanizing because it's actual people and uh it we've seen success with that
34:41 SMS obviously serves this purpose who knows our emails could be hitting the spam voter so it just allows another
34:48 easy one one link one click touch to update their cartoon file um after the Dunning process we don't
34:55 cancel the customer out completely yet we um our CS team who's an export of the
35:02 people that failed during the renewal Dunning and then they reach out manually they're using um some scripts but
35:09 they're reaching out from our CS platform making sure is there anything else we can do to help Blake like not
35:16 even like hey you need to fix your car like do you want us to like help you do you want us to like put your renewal out
35:21 a little bit like are you having a banking issue like help us understand the problem um because we probably ran into it
35:27 before and we can maybe offer offer a solution to it um and they they do that for about seven
35:34 days and um and then at that point it's unfortunately the subscription is is we
35:42 we cancel it out or manually on our side yeah do you have any insights as you go into
35:48 that cure process through Dunning and Outreach all of those things like what do you actually recover from from that
35:54 yeah yeah so so on the 15th unfortunately on about 10 to 12 of our
36:01 cards fail um so during the during the Dunning process of uh the 15th to the 26th we
36:09 end up recovering 72 percent of them um which is of 10 to 12. okay yeah so
36:14 yeah so it's a it's a healthy recovery rate yeah on at that point so so you know we're three-ish Forest
36:22 percent still still failing um at at the point where Luke's team the
36:28 Cs team takes it and they start reaching out we we recover another 50 so we end
36:34 up getting getting that number south of two um which which for us is is a win
36:41 um and I don't remember what we can move the needle on it yeah I I mean but that's in my experience of working with
36:49 all kinds of different subscription brands that are that are all card at 97 98 you know aggregated collection
36:57 or Patriot rate is pretty tremendous especially given you know your far
37:02 higher ticket than the average subscription business I mean that that that's a testament to those processes right there because that that's kind of
37:08 unheard of so then we have something else so wait there's more wait there's more
37:15 so this is the craziest thing is it the date frame doesn't make sense but we've
37:21 tested all that all the time frames so in the 90 to 120 day window since that
37:27 customer is left um they hit a category is it part of an export and Patrick are our win back
37:34 specialist picks up the phone and calls them and gives them uh again certain
37:39 criteria certain tiers certain um overall spend with us certain amount of
37:44 renewals um so not everybody reaches this but if if it was you know arguably a high value
37:51 customer to us um Patrick on our our RCS team picks up the phone and calls and on the it's uh
37:59 it said 90 to 120 day window which doesn't make sense it to me it didn't I
38:05 was like oh it's gonna be this will work best when it's fresh when it's like a couple weeks fresh from canceling that
38:12 right right um but we did the whole Gambit of testing and testing enough to get rid of
38:19 like mathematical variants um all the different ranges up to over a year and then 90 to 120 day for some
38:26 reason performs enough to know that it's not an error like it is
38:32 the best window um so he reaches out of time for a customer to realize how much they miss
38:38 it get in the Box possibly I've uh I've I've tried to wrap my head around it and
38:43 I I can't but I but that's probably that actually makes sense that could that could be the reason
38:49 um but so he reaches out and and he's um
38:55 you know it's not a it's not a needle mover but he's he's typically bringing back 75
39:01 customer customers back um and once they come back they um this
39:06 is a new program for us it's only eight months old um but all the data
39:12 um suggests is suggesting they're staying um on like past traditional LTV marks
39:20 yeah which is much interesting yeah I I mean you know customers don't pay for a
39:26 variety of reasons right and some of it may very well be I just didn't have money and I was embarrassed and we didn't want to reach out or talk about
39:32 it right whatever you get 90 day 90 to 100 days down the road they're in a different spot and they're like yeah I really actually like that thing and I do
39:38 miss getting it and then you know but that that's an Engaged customer for sure right the one that would respond to that
39:44 anyway so it kind of makes sense right that they would stick around a lot longer but that's that's incredible Insight right there that's that's
39:50 valuable information yeah cool well John I've truly enjoyed
39:56 this conversation and I appreciate you going into the weeds there and kind of you know giving us some background into
40:01 those insights that like I said those are some uh amazing metrics you guys should be really proud of
40:07 um but for any of the listeners who want to learn more about Battlbox or any other brands um or maybe have some
40:12 questions about some some of the things we talked about today where where can they go
40:17 um so I'm I'm most active on LinkedIn please I I don't know I just I I like
40:23 LinkedIn um I'm I'm on the other platforms but but LinkedIn is kind of my go-to
40:29 um I have a Blog called onlinecaso.com I literally just share stuff stuff
40:36 that's but not just the victories because um I don't like when all I'm reading are about are people winning I I like when
40:44 you know we failed at something but there was a lesson learned and we are now smarter because of it so I've
40:51 journeyed a few things on there um the first year of tick tock we've got our teeth kicked in and I documented a
40:58 lot of that the learnings we were getting from it um so I'm pretty pretty much of an open
41:04 book on on the blog um and then our site battle box the
41:10 Battlbox.com um you can also go to Netflix go to the
41:15 search bar type in Battlbox and you can see our TV show it's
41:21 a little again John thanks so much really appreciate this has been valuable information for uh all of our listeners
41:28 um so appreciate you coming on the show today thanks for having me Nick this is fun
41:34 [Music]