EBRA, a leading regional news group in France, recognised the need to develop its digital subscriptions while retaining print subscribers. The proposed strategy was to reduce the number of subscribers who cancel or don’t renew a subscription, also known as churn rate. Their hypothesis was that the actions taken to reduce churn, such as improving the customer experience would have a positive impact on customer satisfaction, resulting not only in retention of subscribers, but also growth.

EBRA re-focused the organization, making customer experience its top priority. The group improved customer service through customer studies and implementing feedback processes in order to learn about the customer needs and expectations. The monthly customer survey distributed across the four main websites, Le Dauphiné, L’Est Républicain, DNA and Le Progrès received 900 responses and provided EBRA with invaluable insights to move forward with development. Areas for improvement flagged by customers were the customer journey, elements of the website design and app user experience. After addressing these points the number of new subscribers grew from 38,000 to nearly 80,000 in under a year. Improved tracking and analytics as a result of the project launched a datadriven culture within the company. EBRA’s new insight driven and data led approach is being used to identify more development opportunities.