Highlights
Aucera’s personalized account management and proactive engagement approach successfully addressed substantial challenges, driving significant revenue growth, and enhancing customer experiences.
Recovered $4.6 million in charge volume within the first six months.
Total portfolio contact rate of 95%
Identified a potential $175.1 million in charge volume
Increased engagement per hour by 161%
The Opportunity
One of the nation’s largest banks and global financial services powerhouse, with over 100,000 merchants processing credit card transactions, faced the challenge of retaining and growing a key segment of its merchant base. Due to their significant transaction volumes, approximately 5,000 merchants, contributing around $6.75 billion in charge revenue annually, were identified as potential targets for engagement. In a highly competitive and commoditized market, the company sought to stabilize and enhance relationships with these merchants, ensuring continued loyalty and growth.
The financial services company recognized the need to engage with a customer-centric and innovative partner to deliver actionable insights and drive growth. Aucera’s deep experience in specialized customer care and tailored operational solutions led to them being selected as the partner to help support this project that would bring about astounding outcomes.
The Aucera Solution
Aucera employed a strategic “Pod” approach, leveraging a one-to-one account management relationship model. The Pod approach involved dedicated contact center agents who served as account managers for the merchants. The contact center agents’ primary engagement objectives included the stabilization of relationships with existing merchants, validation and capture of merchant characteristics, education of merchants on processes and procedures and identification of marketing growth and cross-sell opportunities.
The engagement strategy was comprised of three key touchpoints:
Outreach and Introduction: The Pod agent introduces themselves as the client’s services manager, gathering initial information about the merchant’s business
Customer Insight Review: The agent reviews a customer insight report with the merchant to determine if actions were needed to retain, stabilize, or grow the account.
Follow-up and Value-added Solutions: The agent follows up on the gathered information and offered tailored solutions to enhance the merchant’s experience.
Key Outcomes
Aucera’s strategic Pod approach effectively addressed the competitive challenges faced by the financial services company in the credit card services space. Through proactive engagement and tailored solutions, Aucera not only stabilized and enhanced the merchant relationships but also identified significant opportunities for revenue growth. The successful implementation of this approach underscores the importance of personalized account management in a commoditized market, highlighting Aucera’s capability to deliver high-quality customer experiences, proactive management, and effective collaboration with the financial services company.
Revenue Growth: Managed accounts saw a charge volume increase of $4.6 million within the first 6 months.
Engagement: A “first engagement” rate of 67% of the total portfolio and a contact rate of 95%.
Opportunities Identified: 474 opportunities were identified, with an estimated charge volume of $175.1 million.
Opportunities Closed: 25% of opportunities successfully closed, resulting in an estimated charge volume of $28.2 million.
Efficiency Gains: The number of engagements per hour increased by 161%, from 0.31 in January to 0.81 in October.
Quality Scores: The team achieved an overall quality score of 93% and a data integrity score of 95%.
Headcount: The team expanded by 80% over the next 12 months.
