Situation

As a global media publisher with a subscription-based revenue model, this client came to Glenbrook looking for opportunities to improve their payments ecosystem and address concerns around involuntary churn and fraud prevention.

Prior to our engagement, this client was experiencing high involuntary churn and was seeking a strategy that would not only reduce churn but allow their internal teams to make data-driven decisions around churn in the future. This client also had concerns about risk mitigation, as they were experiencing increased fraud and a high chargeback rate. 

In addition to conducting a thorough assessment of the organization’s payments environment, Glenbrook worked with this client to provide actionable recommendations to make their payments more efficient and scalable for an international rollout.

Approach

Given the variety of needs and goals for this client, Glenbrook organized the project into three parallel engagements, allowing our experts to give each unique situation the attention it required for maximum impact on business objectives.

First, Glenbrook used our Merchant Payments Assessment and Strategy methodology to evaluate the organization’s effectiveness in three main areas: overall architecture, provider performance, and total costs of payments. By conducting a deep dive into each, Glenbrook not only identified potential issues but was able to provide research and strategic recommendations for improvement. 

Second, Glenbrook collaborated with the client’s involuntary churn team and data analysts to evaluate current systems to identify key drivers, recommend mechanisms for change, and to develop more sophisticated KPIs and dashboards. 

Third, Glenbrook leveraged our deep expertise in risk management to develop a comprehensive set of risk vectors and recommendations that supported the reduction of chargebacks and improved risk mitigation across the payments environment.

Impact

From initial assessment to strategic recommendations, this client saw improvements across the board from the engagement with Glenbrook, with highlights including:

• The selection of a new payments orchestration platform to enable international expansion.
• A reduction in the total cost of payments processing through the selection of new providers.
• The identification of key issues behind the high churn rates.
• A reduction in chargeback rates and the ability to better measure and mitigate risk in payments as the organization scaled and expanded into international markets.