Elevate CX and Retention in Subscription Services With Advanced Speech Analytics

Share the Smiles

How iQor’s Digital Ecosystem Uses Proprietary Speech Analytics to Differentiate Coaching and Improve Customer Satisfaction in Subscription Services for a Leading Warranty Provider

Background

This top-ranked U.S. warranty company provides peace of mind to millions of homeowners by offering accessible, specialized warranty plans tailored to different homeownership needs. They offer comprehensive coverage regardless of the age or condition of the home and have a network of thousands of vetted contractors across the country ready to respond at a moment’s notice through a single number to call. 

In 2018, iQor began collaborating with the company to provide outsourced payment services (payment status, due date, etc.). The program started in Clark, Philippines and soon expanded to include customer care and support for numerous other lines of business, leveraging our expertise in voice and chat customer service. The partnership expanded to iQor’s team in the United States and Trinidad and Tobago in 2019. 

The program has grown from several hundred full-time employees (FTEs) to several thousand today. iQor provides voice and chat customer care and payment services across four sites in the Philippines with a steady state of FTEs that expands during seasonal peaks and other forecasted ramps. In Trinidad and Tobago, iQor supports a steady state of FTEs for customer care with a team of both English and bilingual (English and Spanish) customer support. The Trinidad team also supports warranty sales with multiple lines of inbound; outbound business; and back office support for accounting, proof of repair correspondence, and other administrative/non-voice services. 

All iQor sites work closely with each other and the client to provide exceptional customer experiences with every interaction. 

Business Opportunity

Early in the program, the client’s customer satisfaction survey results revealed an opportunity to take a closer look at the overall customer experience. The surveys gathered feedback on the customers’ general experiences with the agent along with call and speech clarity. The program team at iQor welcomed the opportunity to dig deeper and identify ways to improve all aspects of the customer experience. 

Additionally, iQor was determined to improve customer retention, increasing a save rate that hovered in the low single digits. Coaching and training would need to specifically target customer retention strategies for agents to use in order to improve the save/retention rate. 

The program also needed to meet peak-season ramps with significant increases in highly skilled agents to provide exceptional customer support in all locations through a scalable, skilled workforce. 

Solution

To address both survey results and customer retention, iQor teams developed coaching and training sessions backed by real-time access to data and analytics from each customer call, enabling them to tailor each session to specific strategies for improving these key performance indicators (KPIs). The teams leveraged VALDI, iQor’s proprietary speech analytics platform that uses cloud computing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to mine every available recorded omnichannel interaction between agents and customers. 

We integrated our subscription services strategy to tailor interactions based on individual customer needs, enhancing first impressions with welcome calls and using data-driven insights for upselling and cross-selling, thereby strengthening customer relationships and reducing churn. 

As part of iQor’s digital technology ecosystem, VALDI enabled the iQor team to deep-dive into call recordings to identify agent behaviors that yielded low survey scores and recognize behaviors that improved the ability to save customers requesting to cancel their service. The team was able to determine the specific word choice and call flow that would drive a better customer experience and made changes to improve results in both of these areas. Once identified, iQor worked to develop a training curriculum and specific types of coaching sessions to improve individual agent and overall performance results. 

Low annualized attrition (7% or less) and the ability to train all agents on general customer care built a strong foundation that enables iQor to ramp support of multiple lines of business during peak seasons in a timely and efficient manner. With foundational training in subscription services and a solid knowledge base established, agents are able to provide highly skilled support on other lines of business during peak-season ramps, while new hires support general customer care. 

Results

Dynamic Speech Analytics and Subscription Services Drive Superior Customer Retention and Pinpoint Coaching Opportunities With the Greatest Impact

With the deployment of VALDI and our strategic approach to customer touchpoints, we achieved remarkable improvements in customer experience scores and retention rates. Scores for the client’s two customer experience surveys improved after deploying speech analytics tailored specifically to identify areas in which individual agents needed immediate support. 

The simple two-question surveys provided helpful feedback to continually improve the customer experience. The client’s Agent Five Star Survey measures how an agent handles the customer’s concerns; the Clarity Five Star Survey measures the communication skills of the agent. iQor’s performance in both the Philippines and Trinidad consistently exceeds service-level agreement (SLA) goals set with the client; iQor leads the way in delivering this consistency with the client’s other business process outsourcing (BPO) partners. 

Speech Analytics Reveal Ways to Make Retention Soar 30 Percentage Points

In addition to helping the team exceed survey goals, custom speech analytics also empowered the iQor subscription services operations team to dramatically improve the retention/save rate for customers wanting to cancel their service. 

The client’s internal customer support team delivered a 2% retention/save rate. Determined to improve this score when the client transitioned outbound retention services to iQor Philippines, the team leveraged the analytics to determine specific reasons why the save rate was so low. iQor enhanced agent training and scripts and the save rate skyrocketed to 32%. 

As a result of this improvement in outbound retention/save rates, the client awarded iQor inbound retention services as well. To ensure continued progress in elevating retention/save rates, the iQor team trained coaches specifically focused on harnessing speech analytics to drive best practices to build value on subscription services provided. With the goal of retaining customers, this drove higher save rates and improved customer retention and loyalty. 

Our focus on personalized customer interactions, backed by intelligent analytics, allowed us to fine-tune our approaches continuously, leading to more effective customer engagements and higher satisfaction levels. 

iQor Delivers 30x Boost in Save Rate

iQor’s custom speech analytics has been a critical component of this success, enabling the team to segment calls and hear why customers want to cancel and what the most effective wording is when agents engage. This data is subsequently used to train agents.

New Caribbean Team Drives Operational Efficiencies That Benefit the Network

Calls per hour (CPH) is a significant component in driving operational efficiencies and improving call handling metrics. The client challenged all of their BPOs to work on processes to improve CPH as a 2020 initiative. The iQor Trinidad team was selected to share best practices for this metric based on their ability to drive CPH improvement consistently month-over-month in 2020. Based on-site results, the Trinidad team set the benchmark for improving CPH rates and has shared best practices and process improvement details with all other client BPOs. 

This is an example of how iQor’s customer-centric philosophy helps drive operational excellence for the business with a collaborative success mindset of one team, one goal.

Excellent Client Communication Continues

This case study exemplifies how integrating advanced speech analytics with personalized subscription services can transform customer experiences, enhancing both satisfaction and retention in competitive markets. 

From the outset, iQor has worked collaboratively with our warranty partner to ensure the iQor management team is successfully trained as subject matter experts with in-depth knowledge of the subscription services we support. This close partnership continues through daily interactions between the client, program supervisors, and operations managers. Moreover, iQor is a trusted partner helping to educate internal and external sites as well as the client’s other BPOs on best practices for improving the customer experience, improving operational efficiencies, and driving revenue and saving customers through fee collection and customer retention strategies. Through digital innovation, collaboration, and determination, iQor delivers customer experiences that create smiles for our customers and for our client.