Boost Customer Retention 5x in Subscription Services With Advanced Speech Analytics

Harnessing Data to Transform Customer Engagement in Subscription Services for a Home Warranty Provider

The Client

This leading American home warranty company provides peace of mind to homeowners by safeguarding them against costly and unforeseen home repairs. 

The client was experiencing 15,000 cancellations per week with an absolute 0% save rate.

They needed a way to stop it — fast.

The Challenge

Millions of customers were satisfied with their home warranty services, yet many assumed they needed to cancel their contracts upon moving homes, not realizing the services were transferable. This misconception, combined with other preventable cancellations led to significant revenue loss. The warranty provider lacked access to crucial data to understand the rate and distribution of cancellations within their customer service interactions. Without speech analytics intel illuminating the patterns and reasons behind these cancellations, they did not know when or where to intervene or how to train agents to intervene successfully.

The Solution

iQor’s proprietary advanced speech analytics platform VALDI, precisely tuned to track and analyze cancellation trends, confirmed the provider’s concerns. Speech analytics data indicated the provider was dealing with roughly 15,000 cancellations a week with an absolute 0% save rate. Their rebuttal rate (when the agent provides reasons or incentives for the customer to stay with the company) was 18% and lower. The provider was eager to glean more insights. 

A Subscription Services Strategy 

Integrating our subscription services strategy, iQor identified key customer touchpoints for intervention. Through call listening and data validation, our team optimized speech analytics to pinpoint cancellations that presented the best opportunities for effective rebuttals and customer retention. 

This analysis allowed us to transform the 15,000 weekly cancellations into 5,000 actionable opportunities each week.

Through defined queries, our team uncovered the main reasons for cancellation requests, such as relocation or property sales, providing a targeted approach for retention efforts. 

Collaboration Led to Success 

Empowered with data, the next step included a strong collaboration between the warranty provider and iQor to craft tailored incentives and rebuttal scripts, initially piloted on select teams. The strategy also included intelligent coaching and specialized training to accelerate customer lifetime value by enhancing agent capabilities to engage and retain customers effectively.  

We also established an outbound retention team, further solidifying our comprehensive approach to customer retention and ensuring continued data analysis to inform future success.

Results

Implementing these strategies saw immediate and significant improvements, with more customers staying on each week. Rebuttal rates skyrocketed from 18% to over 90% in only four weeks. The integration of targeted subscription service strategies, alongside our speech analytics, led to a consistent increase in customer saves, boosting the warranty provider’s bottom line. 

Impressed by the results, the client expanded our partnership across all internal and vendor partner call centers, saving more customers and generating more revenue.

This case study highlights the power of iQor’s real-time speech analytics capabilities and underscores the effectiveness of our subscription services strategy in transforming customer interactions into lasting relationships.