What is Dunning?

There are a wide range of dunning strategies that may be implemented. Dunning allows you as a business to reattempt a declined renewal transaction in order to keep recover revenue that would have otherwise been lost through a failed payment.

Dunning scheduled give you the ability to communicate to the customer their failed payment. For example, if a card declines due to an expiration, the consumer can update to an active card. Thus retaining that customer.

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📘Key Takeaways:

• Dunning is applied on subscription renewals only.
• Dunning Schedules are set on Recurring Offers.

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Creating a Dunning Schedule

You can create a single or multiple dunning schedules. This will allow you to test different reattempt strategies to see which improves overall recovery.

To create a Dunning Schedule:

1. Navigate to Settings

2. Select Dunning Profile under Payment Workflows

3. Select Add Dunning Schedule or select an existing schedule to edit

4. Name the schedule

5. Add additional setup details, if applicable:

   1. Enforce Discount:
      1. if checked, and a dunning discount is applied, that discounted rate will remain the new renewal price moving forward for all subsequent renewals.
      2. If left unchecked, the discount will be applied one time only. All subsequent renewals will go back to the original price.
   2. Schedule Success Off Original Attempt:
      1. If checked, once a reattempt is successful, the next scheduled transaction will go off of the original declined renewal attempt date.
      2. If left unchecked, it will schedule the next transaction based on the date the renewal was successful.

6. Stop Codes: Define specific decline response codes that should not be reattempted. When a transaction declines with one of these codes, dunning will stop and no further retry attempts will be made. Alternatively, you can configure hard declines at the merchant account level. Hard declines configured at the merchant level will apply across all dunning schedules.

7. Active: Check this box to make the dunning schedule active and available for use.

8. Notes: Add internal notes for documentation purposes (visible on the history tab).

9. Hit Submit

   
   

🚧Pay Attention

Make note of the Schedule Success logic. If you have a 30 day subscription do you want the subscription always billed the same date regardless of when the transaction was successful or not.

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Configuring Dunning Attempts

After creating your dunning schedule, you need to configure the specific retry attempts (cycles) that will be made when a renewal fails. This is where you define when and how each retry attempt should occur.

Adding Dunning Cycles

1. After submitting your initial dunning schedule details, you'll be taken to the Edit Dunning Schedule page

2. Navigate to the Configuration tab (in the left sidebar)

3. Click Add Attempt to create a new retry cycle

4. For each cycle/attempt, configure the following:

   
   

Choose Trigger

This determines when the retry attempt should be triggered. Select Days Since Previous Charge:

• Days Since Previous Charge:
  • Calculates the retry timing based on the original scheduled renewal date
  • Example: If the renewal was due on Jan 1st and this is set to 5 days, it will attempt on Jan 6th

At (Time Selection)

Select the specific time when the retry attempt should be processed. You have two types of options:

Static Times:

• 12am, 1am, 2am... through 11pm
• Use these to process attempts at a specific hour each day

Dynamic Times (relative to customer's billing):

• Time Of Original Charge - Processes at the same time the original charge was scheduled
• Time Of Last Successful Charge - Processes at the same time the last successful payment occurred
• 1-5 Hours After Time Of Last Successful Charge - Adds a buffer after the successful charge time

Dynamic times are useful for catching customers when they're most likely to have funds available, based on their historical payment patterns.

Discount Percentage

Optionally offer a discount on this retry attempt to motivate customers to update their payment method. Enter a percentage (e.g., 10 for 10% off).

Remember: The Enforce Discount setting from your Dunning Details tab controls whether this discount becomes permanent or is one-time only.

Responder

Select which email or SMS responder should be sent when this attempt fails. Only responders configured with the Declined Transaction trigger will appear in this dropdown.

Responders with the Declined Transaction trigger must be configured separately before they'll be available for selection here. See the Responder Triggers guide for more information on setting up responders.

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Note: When a dunning schedule is applied to an offer, dunning responders take priority over any Declined Transaction responders configured at the offer level.

Example Configuration

Here's a common three-attempt dunning strategy:

This configuration:

• Attempts retry 1 after 3 days at midnight with an email sent to customer
• Attempts retry 2 after 3 more days from attempt 1 (6 days total) at midnight with an email sent to customer
• Attempts retry 3 at 5 days (11 days total) from attempt 2, timed to match when the last successful charge occurred, with a 10% discount with an email sent to customer

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Implementing a Dunning Schedule

After creating the Dunning Schedule, you have the flexibility to apply it to any desired Offer. You can utilize the same dunning schedule for multiple Offers or experiment with different dunning strategies.

Once your Dunning is setup and live, monitor performance by utilizing the Vrio Dunning Report.

Dunning is setup on the Offer Details page of a Recurring Offer.

Testing Dunning Schedules

In order to test dunning without having to use real credit cards you can place a test order making sure you use a merchant that is associated with the Test Gateway. Then follow the steps below.

1. Place a test order for a recurring offer with a merchant that has the test gateway using any test card number ( either 4111222233334444, 4111222233336666 ( prepay ) or any test card configured from the test card section).

2. Update the card by clicking on the Add New Payment Method on the order offer to be a Vrio decline card number that works with the test gateway. (4111222233335555).

   
   

3. All renewals will decline until card is changed back to a non declined card.