Stop the Churn: How Digital Media Call Centers Are Cutting Costs and Winning Back Subscribers

In the competitive world of digital media, customer retention is the ultimate metric. For subscribers, a failed login, a missed delivery or a billing issue can quickly lead to a cancellation. So, although the contact center is the frontline of the subscription economy, many digital media companies are struggling with outdated systems that are draining budgets and frustrating customers.

As one major Southeast Louisiana newspaper publisher, The Advocate, recently discovered, relying on fragmented systems and third-party providers leads to a cascade of problems. High dropped-call rates, poor experiences and a customer service team hampered by technological limitations. By switching to a modern, unified contact center platform like TCN Operator, The Advocate achieved a stunning transformation, offering a blueprint for the entire industry.

Here are the five critical capabilities digital media call centers need, as highlighted by The Advocate’s success story:

1. The high-volume efficiency imperative: automated call containment

Digital media companies experience massive call volume spikes — especially during promotions or service outages (like weather-related delivery issues). An inability to handle these surges leads to massive hold times and call abandonment, which can harm the customer experience. To avoid this while also maintaining efficiency, contact centers must handle high volumes without overstaffing, long wait times or a lack of self-service options.

Solutions like Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and queued callback features are game-changers. In fact, The Advocate saw its call containment rate soar from 45% to 70% after they implemented TCN’s IVR and queued callback tools. The system funneled common delivery or billing issues to self-serve options, all while automatically offering a callback after a short wait. As a result, The Advocate virtually eliminated the long hold times that drove customers away.

2. The agent efficiency accelerator: smarter routing, lower cost

Wasting agent time is wasting money. That’s why in a digital media call center, an agent’s time should be invested into subscriber retention, not answering a question the IVR could have handled. To combat this, contact centers must utilize intelligent routing that ensures human agents only handle complex, high-value issues (like retention efforts or upsells), rather than simple information requests, to ensure calls are routed to a human agent only when truly necessary.

 By implementing this strategy,The Advocate’s internal team was able to double the number of calls they effectively handled each week, significantly reducing their reliance on expensive third-party outsourcing and cutting operational costs.

3. The path to zero complaints: reliability and experience

The Advocate’s previous setup resulted in customer complaints, including multiple monthly reports to the Better Business Bureau, primarily due to dropped calls and transfer errors. This perfectly demonstrates how a reliable, seamless platform that eliminates technical failures and ensures a smooth customer journey from IVR to agent hand-off, is a must for every digital media company.

By providing a unified, cloud-based platform, TCN allowed The Advocate to achieve virtually no dropped calls. The result was an immediate, dramatic drop-off in customer service complaints — proving that platform stability directly translates into subscriber satisfaction and retention.

4. Analytics that stop costly inefficiencies

Without clear data, call center managers are left to guess about staffing needs and agent performance, leading to either unnecessary overtime or disastrous coverage gaps. Real-time, comprehensive data on call volumes, agent activity and queue health enables rapid, data-driven decisions. Additionally, robust Business Intelligence (BI) tools provide managers with a real-time view of all key metrics.

This same insight allowed The Advocate to identify and address agent inefficiencies that were costing the company money, optimize staffing levels and prevent minor issues from becoming costly subscriber-retention crises.

5. Flexibility and partnership over contracts

In the fast-moving digital space, being locked into a rigid contract with an unresponsive vendor can be fatal. That’s why digital media companies need a flexible, supportive partner that offers seamless implementation and a commitment to customer satisfaction over long-term financial lock-in,  especially as they grow. This, paired with dedicated account managers and proactive weekly check-ins, helps ensure that clients like The Advocate can make system changes quickly and smoothly, keeping pace with the dynamic demands of their industry. 

To learn more about how you can transform your digital media contact center, read the rest of The Advocate’s story now.