Failed payment dunning is the process of contacting customers whose subscription payments have declined and following a sequence of escalating reminders to recover the revenue.
Automated dunning evaluates each failed payment against customer history, selects the correct message template automatically, sends it within minutes, and logs the attempt in a single system.
The full workflow, from trigger to completion.
Webhook detects a failed or declined payment on an active subscription. The automation is triggered immediately with customer ID, invoice amount, and failure reason.
Automation queries to retrieve customer contact details, subscription status, and prior dunning attempts for this customer.
The automation analyzes the customer's dunning history and failure count, then selects the appropriate dunning message template and sequence step (soft reminder, urgent, or final notice).
Automation sends the selected dunning email template to the customer's primary contact address, with customer name and invoice details merged in.
Automation appends a row to the dunning tracking sheet with customer name, invoice ID, dunning step sent, send timestamp, and scheduled follow-up date.
Automation creates a follow-up task for the finance team to check payment status in 3 to 5 days, with a link to the customer record.
Automation sends a summary message to the finance channel listing the customer, invoice amount, and dunning step sent, so the team has visibility into all dunning activity.
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