Client: Provider of residential Cable TV, phone and Internet services

Situation: Client is fairly well penetrated in its serviceable market, but does not have a retention process in place, and is experiencing an increase in customer churn. Client asked Affinitas to recommend a retention program that could improve retention and reduce churn.

Solution: Affinitas recommended several communication touchpoints from its Customer 1st ^® customer communication program. Customer 1st is a disciplined, yet flexible system that enables marketers to identify and anticipate naturally occurring events and changes in product usage during the customer lifecycle. Each event is designed to trigger specific corresponding communications that speak to the customer in a relevant and timely fashion, through virtually any method available.

Production efficiencies are maximized by printing mail piece “shells” upfront. These are held in a library to be accessed for each scheduled communication, when variable imaged offers and messages are personalized. Therefore, this process offers flexibility in offers and messaging, as information can be edited on-the-fly, as market conditions warrant.

Results: The Customer 1st program was successful in not only reducing churn and improving ROI, but also was successful in increasing direct mail response rates when special offers were provided as part of the communication. Specifically:

• Churn rates reduced by 28%
  
  
• ROI more than doubled – Based on reduced churn plus increased units per customer.
  
  
• Response rates in the range of 3.6% to 10.7% – Varies by customer segment and offer – Versus previous range of 0.5% to 1.0%