Beyond a sleek user interface and instant onboarding, one of the most important features of your mobility rental app is the payment process. This, of course, is your gateway to revenue, and when payments stall or fail so too do your earnings.
Failed transactions happen—but that doesn’t mean they have to stay unpaid.
Joyride’s new payment recovery features are designed to overturn trouble with failed trip payments. Our new Underpayment Self Recovery system helps fleet operators and rental managers reclaim lost revenue by nudging app users to settle their accounts within 15 minutes of trip completion.
Joyride’s Auto Recovery system, meanwhile, increases your underpayment settlement rate by retrying transactions in smaller chunks if the initial notifications are ignored.
Together, the features work in tandem nearly instantly, with Joyride operators already seeing thousands of dollars recovered within days of toggling these features on.
Here, let’s take a dive into recovery mode:
Underpayment Recovery prompts riders to settle up
How it works:
- In the event of underpayment or payment failure, the rider will receive both a push notification and email prompting them to take action
- Notifications are sent at these intervals until the balance is paid off:
- 15 minutes after the trip ends
- 24 hours after the trip ends
- 72 hours after the trip ends
- 120 hours after the trip ends
- 240 hours after the trip ends
- Until the balance is paid, a banner will display on the user’s app home screen showing the amount owed and a ‘PAY NOW’ button
- Clicking the ‘PAY NOW’ button will redirect the user to the PAY OFF screen where they can clear the balance using their preferred payment method
In the event of multiple underpayments or payment failures, separate push notifications and email reminders will be sent, and the banner will reflect the total balance owed.
If the user only pays part of the balance, the system will continue to prompt him or her until the total amount owed is recovered. For example, if a payment of $10 fails and the user receives a reminder but only pays $4, then the next email or push notification will reflect the remaining underpayment of $6.
From self to auto: Charging incremental amounts to users with Auto-Recovery
Joyride’s Auto Recovery system increases your underpayment settlement rate by retrying transactions in smaller chunks, and it’s meant to be used once the initial notifications are ignored by the user. One attempt is made per day per available payment method.
How it works:
- Instead of charging the full amount again (which often fails), the system will charge smaller amounts (“chunks”) across the rider’s saved payment methods
- If one chunk goes through, the remaining balance shrinks
- The system keeps retrying until the balance is cleared or the total allowable attempts for that balance range are exhausted (a greater underpayment value = more recovery attempts). The system will never charge more than what the rider actually owes.
Joyride’s Auto Recovery system is designed to only attempt recovery within the pre-set “chunks” and recovery windows. Once those scheduled attempts are completed, the system stops to avoid endless retries or card issuers flagging the activity as suspicious.
Riders can still settle underpayments manually (via app prompts, emails, or the next time they attempt to ride), but Auto Recovery will not continue.
What does a Full Recovery look like?
Here’s an example:
- Jane has two credit cards on file. She takes a trip resulting in an underpayment of $59
- After a 15 minute delay, Jane is sent an email and in-app reminder
prompting her to pay the balance - 24 hours later, Jane has not paid the balance. The Auto Recovery system kicks in:
The system will charge up to $40, then $25, then $10 (if needed).
Here’s what happens with Jane:
Attempt 1 (24 hours after underpayment)
- The system tries $40 on Card A → ❌
- The system tries $40 on Card B → ✅
- Recovered: $40 → Remaining: $19
Attempt 2 (48 hours after underpayment)
The second attempt will charge up to $25. Since $19 is remaining:
- The system tries $19 on Card A → ❌
- The system tries $19 on Card B → ✅
- Recovered: $19 → Remaining: $0
With this scenario, full recovery is completed in two days. Jane is sent an email to notify her that the balance was settled.
Together, these two layers—Self Recovery + Auto Recovery—capture more lost revenue than either would alone. These features are part of our increasingly unique product bundles for fleet operators, including this summer’s release of of our Work Orders + Operator App combo.
They also represent Joyride’s ongoing mandate to automate tools for operators in order to maximize fleet efficiency, performance and, of course, revenue. To learn more about what sets Joyride’s mobility software features apart from the pack, contact us here.
