eMember and eStore – change subscription types

[flojnel]

On a client’s site, we have eMember and eStore. Two subscription plans were set up with recurring payments, but the clients are finding too many issues doing it this way and want to switch to annual only (now annual recurring).

I’m not clear about what would be the best way to do this. We don’t want to lose the member’s info when we do this because they all have classified ads we’d rather they didn’t have to enter again.

I see there are shortcodes for changing a plan in eMember, but what happens at the eStore end then? Should we have them switch right before their next recurring payment is due?

[admin]

You can probably handle this a few different ways but I would recommend the following:

Step 1) Create a new membership level in eMember (give it the same permission as the current one).

Step 2) Create a new eStore product to accept membership payment for this newly created level.

Step 3) Use the subscription button for this new estore product on your payment/join us page. This new button will replace the old ones (so new customers start to go to this new plan).

Step 4) When an old customer’s account expires or the plan ends, tell him/her to go and make the payment using the new button (for the new plan).

This way the existing members will continue the same way for a little while without any disruption.

Slowly over time you won’t have any users in your old plan anymore (at that time you can delete that old level if you want to).

[flojnel]

Would all of the members information be kept during the switch? Especially concerned that they wouldn’t have to recreate their classified ads.

(Sorry for the late reply – have been away from my office.)

[admin]

Yeah all the existing members details stay as is.

[flojnel]

One other difficulty – the old plan doesn’t end because it uses recurring payments. Sometimes it doesn’t renew, so people would be able to switch over to the new plan in that case. But sometimes it keeps working (renewing).

Should we ask those people to sign up for the new plan and then stop the recurring plan?

Thanks for your help.

[admin]

Yeah cancel/stop the recurring plan and that will automatically deactivate the account of the member. Then tell him/her to renew/pay using the new subscription button.

[Author]

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