Churn Reduction & Revenue Recovery

Role

Program Manager & Continuous Improvement Lead

Team

Business, Sales, Customer Care, RPA, CI

Tools

Tableau, RPA, GenAI Transcription, CRM, SMS Gateway

Philosophy

Shift from reactive cancellation processing to proactive revenue rescue

01

Context

In the payments industry, merchant churn is the silent killer. Acquiring a new merchant is significantly more expensive than retaining an existing one. With a massive merchant base, Geidea needed a systematic approach to identify "at-risk" merchants before they left permanently.

Business Challenge

The goal was to shift from reactive "cancellation processing" to proactive "revenue rescue"—intercepting churn before it becomes permanent.

Scale of Challenge

02

Problem

The organization faced high-volume churn without clear segmentation strategy or intervention framework.

1. Undefined Metrics

Ambiguity existed between a merchant who was "seasonally dormant" versus one who had "switched to a competitor"—both treated identically despite requiring different interventions.

2. Massive Scale

We needed to systematically target a cohort of 30,000+ at-risk merchants—impossible to address through manual outreach alone.

3. Operational Void

No standardized feedback loop existed to understand why merchants were leaving. Churn data was lost, never feeding back into product or service improvements.

"The opportunity: design a comprehensive Churn Management Program that segments merchants by inactivity, performance drops, and sentiment—deploying targeted retention strategies at scale."

— Program Charter

03

Ideation

I moved the organization away from a static "days inactive" model to a dynamic two-front defense strategy combining interception and prediction.

A. The Reactive Firewall (Interception)

Re-engineered the offboarding workflow to create a "Cancellation Trap." Instead of processing cancellations immediately, requests are re-routed to a specialized Retention Team. Goal: force human negotiation using "Save Offers" (rental waivers, rate adjustments) before any terminal is collected.

B. The Proactive Signals (Prediction)

Triangulated three distinct signals to predict churn probability:

01

The Silent Signal

Inactivity detection—merchants who simply stopped transacting. Early warning before complete disengagement.

02

The Performance Signal

TPV Drop monitoring—active merchants showing rapid decline (>15-50% MOM), indicating business split to competitor.

03

The Sentiment Signal

VOC integration—merchants who gave "Detractor" scores (0-6) on surveys, flagging immediate emotional risk.

04

Process

I designed a tiered intervention logic based on signal severity and merchant value to ensure efficient resource allocation at scale.

Churn Recovery Process

Churn recovery process: end-to-end intervention workflow

The Trigger Logic

Automated actions based on specific thresholds:

Risk-Based Intervention Matrix

Risk Level Inactivity Trigger Performance Trigger (MOM TPV Drop) Action Taken
Early Warning 0 – 5 Days > 15% Drop Automated SMS (Health Check)
Risk 14 – 30 Days > 30% Drop Telesales Call (Retention Agent)
Critical 30 – 60 Days > 50% Drop Field Visit (Sales Representative)

The VIP Fast Track

High-Value Merchants bypass automated flows entirely. Any Performance Drop or Negative VOC Score triggers immediate alert to their dedicated Relationship Manager for same-day personal visit.

The Feedback Loop

"We turned churn intervention from a cost center into an intelligence engine—every saved merchant teaches us how to prevent the next one."

— Process Design Principle

05

Implementation

To ensure this ran at scale without daily manual intervention, I architected a low-code automation pipeline combining analytics with robotic execution.

The Technical Stack

Logic Engine (Tableau)

Built dynamic daily dashboards connected to Data Warehouse. These act as the "Logic Filter," streaming merchant data into distinct tables based on trigger criteria (e.g., "Table A: >30% Drop").

Execution Layer (RPA)

Loop Closure (Voice Intelligence)

Technical Architecture

Technical architecture: Tableau logic engine → RPA execution → GenAI voice intelligence

06

Results

By shifting from reactive cancellation processing to a predictive, automated retention engine, we achieved transformational results between January and December.

SAR 500M
TPV Rescued
Annualized
1,000+
Merchants Reactivated
Previously churned
30%
Churn Reduction
YTD improvement
16 hrs
Time-to-Contact
Down from 14 days
85%
Automation Rate
Workflow coverage
99%
Pipeline Coverage
Zero leakage

Commercial Impact

Operational Efficiency

Strategic Intelligence

"We transformed churn from a revenue leak into an intelligence engine—every retention conversation now feeds organizational improvement."

— Program Results

Next Project

The Unified Banking Ecosystem Portal