Stop Postpaid Churn Without Ever Giving Discounts

Why Listen

Meet Gabriel Felipe Cortes Molina, Senior Loyalty and Retention Manager at Tigo Colombia with 12 years in the field.

What happens when you stop relying on discounts to save customers – and start fixing the real reasons they leave? Gabriel’s team has built a retention engine powered by proactive communication, rapid response squads, and genuine empathy. The results speak for themselves.

5 Tips to Stop Postpaid Churn Without Ever Giving a Discount

1. Prevent Bill Shock
Unexpected charges are the number-one drama trigger and so is churn. When a bill jumps from month to month, contact rates double or triple. Tip: don’t wait for the angry call – identify billing changes early and reach out with SMS, WhatsApp, or a phone call before the invoice lands.

2. Activate On-site Teams
When a customer’s experience fails, remote fixes aren’t enough. A dedicated on-site team to swap equipment, optimize Wi-Fi, and fix root causes has a big impact on keeping customers from leaving. Tip: track repeated service signals across channels and escalate critical cases to on-site teams same day.

3. Lead With Empathy
Frustrated customers don’t always need a discount. Sometimes they just need to be heard. A genuine apology and a promise to prioritize their issue can completely change the outcome. Tip: train your frontline to listen first, acknowledge the pain, and only then move to solutions.

4. Make Churn a Shared KPI
Churn isn’t just a retention problem – it’s a service, billing, and network problem too. If other teams don’t share your KPIs, they won’t prioritize your fixes. Tip: build business cases that show the ROI for every team involved from fewer repeat calls, fewer truck rolls to better NPS.

5. Stay Focused
Churn has thousands of micro-causes, but only a few drive the majority of losses. Pick the top pain points – speed and focus beat perfection every time. Tip: start with one root cause, run a small pilot, measure the impact, then expand.

Episode Highlights

• Discounts destroy value – fix root causes before offering price reductions
• Bill shock doubles or triples contact rates and churn risk
• Proactive SMS, WhatsApp, and calls prevent billing frustration before it starts
• Repeated service tickets and missed appointments leave trackable churn signals
• On-site SWAT teams resolve critical service issues for at-risk customers
• A genuine apology can be more powerful than any retention offer
• Shared KPIs across teams unlock cross-functional churn collaboration
• Frame retention initiatives as cost savings to win organizational buy-in
• Focus on 1–3 pain points instead of building 20 dashboards
• Competition drove a 57% price decrease in Colombia – speed of response matters

Recommendations for Growth as a Professional

Start with curiosity – dig into the data and find the patterns others miss. Build relationships across every team. Learn to communicate insights clearly and make friends in other departments.

Stay resilient. Churn management is pressure – you can turn into a diamond or stay a piece of carbon. Read widely – try Atomic Habits, Fighting with Data, and Man’s Search for Meaning.

Final Words

Retention isn’t about giving things away. It’s about understanding pain, acting fast, and fixing what’s actually broken. When you lead with empathy and collaborate across teams, discounts become the last conversation – not the first. That’s how you build loyalty that lasts.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Gabriel: When you start to give discount, you are only giving value to the market and destroy the value of the user. So there are many things you can do before start giving discounts. A user that change the billing one month to another. Increase the churn rate and increase the contact rate between the double or triple and regular user. Sometimes you have to say, I’m really sorry for what you’ve gone through.

[00:00:29] Exacaster: Welcome to CVM Stories, the podcast on customer value management. Together, we explore how companies can be more successful and the customers happier through the use of latest customer value management techniques. Learn key commercial and analytical insights from telecoms, retail, finance and other industries that drive CVM forward.

[00:00:48] Egidijus: Hi, I’m your host, Egidijus. Today our guest is Gabriel Felipe Cortes Molina. Gabriel has been working in the postpaid retention for the last 12 years, and today he will be sharing his secrets on how to eliminate postpaid churn without giving away discounts. So let’s dive in. So thank you, Gabriel, for joining us today. Um, I know it’s very early for you. Um.

[00:01:25] Gabriel: Yeah, here in Colombia, it’s about 6 a.m..

[00:01:29] Egidijus: Yeah. So as I said, you, uh, before, uh, you will be in our history as the person who woke up earliest to participate in this podcast. So thank you. Thank you for taking this extra mile. Gabriel. Uh, first of all, I would like to ask you, it’s like, what what do you do? I know that you just celebrated, like, 12 years in Tigo Colombia. Uh, how did you end up working in telecom? And what do you do here? Uh, just briefly explain to our listeners, uh, a little bit about yourself.

[00:02:15] Gabriel: Okay. First of all, thank you for inviting me Egidijus to your podcast. I’m really happy to be here and that’s a reward. Well, uh, how do I start in telecom? Um, well, I didn’t originally plan to work in telecom, but once I did it, uh, that was 12 years ago. So, but once I really, I realized that was the perfect fit for me. Um, what really caught my, my first was the speed of change of the industry. For example, in, in, in my team or in management. Every day is so different. So you don’t have to, you don’t have time to get bored. And, and retention is not about give discounts. It’s more about to understanding the pain points, reading the data, working with teach operations, customer service to fix root causes. Um, so that keeps me motivated for that, that time to now and well, using technology, teamwork, solve problems that you, that you, uh, that you can see that solve a problem, not just went to a person, but for 1000. So that mix of collaboration impact is what keeps me motivated for a long time.

[00:03:53] Egidijus: When we were discussing like, uh, what could we talk about in this podcast? I heard your story about, uh, uh, retention in postpaid and you kind of. And everything. What you told me immediately hooked me. So our, a lot of, uh, our conversation today will be about retention and postpaid. So, uh, Gabriel, imagine that, you know, I’m a new guy in retention department and I’m saying like, okay, so we need to know to give very aggressive offers to retain our customers. Uh, where are our offers? What would you say for me?

[00:04:38] Gabriel: I think that’s not a good idea. I think that maybe could be the last one or maybe could be the thing. You should you shouldn’t do it.

[00:04:53] Egidijus: So I should not be thinking about retention offers? No.

[00:04:58] Gabriel: No. Maybe if you are in a competitive market, but you, you. When you start to give discounts, you. You are only giving value to the to the market and destroy the value of the user ID of the of the user. So there are many things you can do before start giving an offering, giving discounts.

[00:05:29] Egidijus: Okay, so now it’s a very interesting conversation starter, you know, so if discounts, if, if people don’t churn because of discounts. Yeah. The question is, so why do people churn in postpaid? Is there any guidance that you would. Help to to dig here.

[00:05:57] Gabriel: Yeah. From, from experience and my perspective, there are three main reasons for that. For these days. The first one, obviously, is competition. If a competitor’s offers better value, more benefits, lower prices, obviously customers stars become starts comparing and starts shopping. And and if you are in a competitive market, you, you will you will show that more intensive in your in your KPIs. The second one is about bad service. See if you if you experience a frozen TV loss, speed, light repairs, poor installation. Trust the drop quickly. So the user obviously is going to get upset and they show you that frustration. The third one I got, I call it and I hear you call it the drama queen. Yeah, that’s the shock. Yeah. When, when you when a user receive an unexpected charge, reconnection fees, promo endings or preparations that can trigger immediately frustration. So you can combine these three one and you can add some life stress in your life. Like for example, you have to move for a new job and from your house, or you have to move from, or you have some job changes or you have pain and pressure. So these three combines with, with the stressful things are that normal life becomes much easier. And for, for for the user.

[00:07:55] Egidijus: And now I understand why. Why you say that, uh, discounts, uh, will not reduce journeys.

[00:08:04] Gabriel: Don’t tell me about discounts.

[00:08:08] Egidijus: Okay. But, uh, let’s, uh, discuss a little bit deeper into, let’s say, into all those three categories. Uh, I think, uh, the category that I understand the best is, you know, the bill shock because it’s like if you have the bill shock, uh, immediately the first idea that comes to my mind, you know, it’s like, oh my God, telco is stealing my money. Uh, and the first chance I get, I will leave it. Is it true? You know, does my intuition sound true or not? Well, how do you see this?

[00:08:54] Gabriel: Yeah. Like I told you, this is a drama queen. Of all the telcos. And it comes from predictable shocks. Yeah. So let’s unpack it a little bit more. Uh, for example, first build surprises like activation charges. So some, some, some companies start to sell to users with a promo and don’t, and, and don’t forget to tell about the, the promo. So the, the third or second month, the user is key in increasing their, in their, in their billing. So they get surprised. The second one is, for example, roaming add ons. They forget where they are active and usually another usually is late payment. For example, in Latin. In Latin the A people don’t. For people forget to pay on time. So they get suspension and they fee reconnection fees or they see another billing account in the next month. So that’s, that’s difficult to the user to explain. And there are a lot of. Yes, but we try to prevent these with early communication.

[00:10:19] Egidijus: So what, what do you mean?

[00:10:21] Gabriel: So we identify in the data people who are going to change the bill. One month I was paying about, I don’t know, 50, 50,000 and and the next month I will pay 100. So this is a this is a change. And we know that our user is going to call to call to us. So we prevent this with early communication. Yeah. Because a to try to mitigate the the the unexpected charges of the in the user. So we send SMS, WhatsApp reminders. We sometimes we call them. So a but many only that only customers react when they seal the bill. And that’s what they. And the drama starts.

[00:11:18] Egidijus: Oh, I can imagine. You know, I have had some drama moments as well. Personally, but like, for example, when you say like the proactive communication, uh, helps. The question is when do you do this? Communication is like, uh, you know, if I am roaming, uh, do you say, hey, it seems like you are roaming a lot. You know your bill will increase. Or is it like before the invoice? And so, uh, did you notice any pattern where to when to inform customer, you know, about these changes?

[00:12:02] Gabriel: The two insights. The first one is that we show that a user that a change the billing one month to another, increase the churn rate and increase the contact rate in the in the all the channels between the double or triple and regular user. The second one is that we, we have triggers on on that specific items. So we can identify when a user have a change and what’s the reason. And we try to A work with communicate the user that they have. They that they are going to receive a change in their in their building.

[00:12:52] Egidijus: So basically you need to cover everything. What you can cover in real time. You you cover with trigger. Uh, what you can cover with, uh, like, uh, billing cycle you cover there. If I understand correctly.

[00:13:06] Gabriel: We tried, we try to cover some, some, some, some things.

[00:13:11] Egidijus: Uh, and, uh, one more interesting question for me is like, um, uh. Did you notice, let’s say, uh, any specific threshold after which, you know, the drama levels increase. So for example, I know 10%, uh, uh, uh, bill change is okay, but then 30%. It’s like definitely a huge drama, like 100%. It’s like definitely churn or is it like more even? I don’t know. Have you noticed noticed anything similar to this?

[00:13:55] Gabriel: When people is happy, enjoying a travel and they become and they see the bill is a is very frustrating for the user because I was oh my God, I receive, I receive a like it’s like an app in my building. Yes. And obviously when, when, when people have to pay for or they show that they missed to pay on time that increase a lot of the, the contact index and the churn rate of that users deforestation. So that’s. And obviously every year in every telco, in every company and every in every part of the world. You have to increase your price because you have a macroeconomics index behind that. So all people and all the companies have to increase their prices. So that’s frustrating for the user. So every year, January to February, we are receiving some and we are receiving an upside of calls.

[00:15:06] Egidijus: Well, yeah, but but this is you know, this is more a business strategy like, which is more.

[00:15:12] Gabriel: Yeah, this is a business strategy. Not, not not reasonably, but for the user, they, they feel frustrated.

[00:15:22] Egidijus: Yeah, definitely. Okay. So this was very, very, very interesting piece. Uh, I learned a lot, uh, about, let’s say the billing challenges. But you mentioned two more. Yes. So one more was, uh, uh, service related. Could you could you expand a little bit more on this?

[00:15:48] Gabriel: Um, well, um. We have here in service, uh, this is another drama queen. Well, yeah, service is important for for for, for user. So so when a user, uh, drops the service, where are working, for example, we are having this podcast and immediately service goes down. Uh, you are not going to get frustrated. You are going to get upset. Yeah. So yeah. Um, and are you, you are watching the Super Bowl and maybe the TV is going to is frozen. So you. What happened with that? So, for example, you expected to receive a visit and the visit. Never a never visit to you to fix your your troubles or, or you are trying to move to another house. So, so maybe could be frustrated and, and getting upset to the results. So we work on on persuade the bad experience of the user to and when when a user. Pass by the things I told you they left a footprint. They leave. They left a clear pattern. So we track repeated repeated signals across all the channels. For example, if you put multiple tickets in 3D 60 in 80 days, or you miss. Or a point or or or or a late point, a late appointment or the speed or latency be below plans for days or frequently reboots app errors or, or or the user are speaking to us a recurring pain points about them.

[00:17:55] Gabriel: Any any MPs or NCS comments. So we we start to understand what is happening with with the user. So we, we and then we apply preventive fixes. And that preventive fixes is to call you and try to fix remote actions. Um, and if a remote action are not enough, we prioritize and dispatch rapid response teams and usually happens when the user that the user you you call you to cancel. So and they’re, they’re fixed root causes on site and they optimize the Wi-Fi. We have a swap, a swap equipment, a small network corrections and, and yes, in critical cases, if I, if I have the, the user in a call, I, I deploy a, a Swat team. Yeah. It’s like a Swat team, like in the movies, but I say this is an, an ambulance, an ambulance for customer experience in, in users who, who are, who are going to cancel us. But behind all of all, all of that, behind the data and the information that we had of the user. There is some about empathy because Sometimes, unusually, the user is upset. So sometimes you have to say, I’m really sorry for what you’re going through. I’m sorry for interrupt the Super Bowl. I don’t know this part.

[00:19:43] Egidijus: For me, it’s like super interesting, you know, because when we talk about frustration, you know, uh, it is talking about feelings. It’s, it’s, uh, it’s not a rational thing, you know? I just feel frustrated and sometimes, you know, uh, when I release my frustration and somebody just says, sorry, it’s, uh, it becomes such a relief, you know? So did you notice, uh, this part like that? Uh, just saying sorry is, uh, like half of the job or.

[00:20:19] Gabriel: Yeah, yeah, it’s part of the job. It’s part of the job. And I, and I feel it’s like kind of, it’s kind of a Superpower because sometimes you have to listen to people. There are people that just want to be listened. And we know there are people that just call to talk with another person sometimes. And and and and and and, and finally, when you, when you say, and you hear that, that paint and, and you, and you say sorry and you, you just give, please give me another chance to help you. I’m going to prioritize your the troubles that you have. I understand perfectly all the things you have been through. So. It helps a lot people. And and it’s important about the empathy because you have like a, a you have to, in the shoes of the user and, and understand all the things. Maybe he wasn’t an interview. He wasn’t in a podcast. He was working. He was on a presentation. Or he was studying or or or or simple. The person has a bad day. And sometimes we try to apply some psychology in the people to help them. Yeah. And we try to to relieve the pain, help them to recover the the service.

[00:21:59] Egidijus: So this is very interesting for me. So if we combine like for bill shock, you want to the customer to be proactively informed and basically that they would feel in control that you know, that you are not charging them, you know, from behind their back. You know, it’s like, it’s not a secret charge, but you, you are in control From, uh, services. You need to have empathy, uh, about the situation and also have this, uh, super hero squad team that actually fixes. Yeah. So you need both, you need to be empathetic and then you need to solve the issue. Yes. And we are still not talking about any discounts yet. Uh, okay, now let’s talk a little bit about the third thing. It’s like you said that the competition is around. Yes. Postpaid Churn Without

[00:23:07] Gabriel: Uh, you have some kind of control in building shocks and and the service, but in the competition, it’s more difficult. For example, I don’t know in other countries, but here in Latam, competition is very intensive and, and is it’s very aggressive from the start. From I remember when where one arrives, uh, I don’t know, five years of or, or just kind of five years or six years, the prices decrease 57%. So. Oh, wow. The, and, and, and for all companies was, was a shock because you have to protect your, your base and you have to work in your cores and your everything. So, and in, for example, in the portability of occurs in ours here in Colombia. And a customer can request in the morning and they. And then the switch operator in the afternoon. So you have uh, um, or well on that process, you, you are very limited. So we prefer the portability windows open and we monitor some inbound calls. Digital intention, computer signals and risk indicators about the billing of the user. And and and we add variables, variables like experience or the billing issue or stress or the or risk of the of the user. And we try to in the same way we try to respond.

[00:24:53] Egidijus: But in this case, it’s, we are already talking about, let’s say, potential pricing changes. Yeah, maybe because it’s not only about resolving some challenges, but, but here you need to react with price. Yes.

[00:25:10] Gabriel: Yeah. We need to react. Always or almost is about the price the customer see a lower price. They see a promotion and there are many people who are in every part of the world, every every people want to save that penny. So so so so they move into into a price.

[00:25:36] Egidijus: So okay.

[00:25:40] Gabriel: So yes, we are, we, we reframe some, we call them a, we reframe some of the value, we resize the plan. And it’s not about just giving a discount. Yeah. Because sometimes the user have a problem. Don’t understand what happened with the billing with the billing. And sometimes we offer and sometimes we offer, we offer conversion plans. So, so the user, if the user see that they have a combo between home and and, and a home and fix the services, well, they are going to have a save in their billing and the. And in the last time we talked about a about the discount, we torched the discount a. And sometimes, as I told you in a part, sometimes we call them and we say, hello, how are you? And that’s it. Sometimes it works. It’s. Everything is okay with your with your billing. Everything is. It’s okay with you and and and change the history of the of the user.

[00:26:55] Exacaster: If you are interested in customer value management, check out our customer value management body of knowledge. CVMBoK is a comprehensive guide for CVM professionals offering tips, tools, and best practices to help you in your job. Visit cvmbok.com for more.

[00:27:13] Egidijus: So it’s a really interesting combo because every time you you really emphasize a lot that it’s like the pricing offer. It’s the last, last thing that you do, which is like really important and interesting insight. But the question is, how does it change the work for the customer value manager? You know, because if I speak about customer value management, it’s like, you know, we run campaigns, we run, uh, we, we deliver personalized offers, etc.. And, uh, uh, our KPI is churn rate. And now you say your KPI is churn rate, but the actions are in different department. How do you manage that?

[00:28:07] Gabriel: Well, this is, uh, a huge challenge. And I, and I can tell you the first thing is You have to align is the strategy. Yeah. Because if if we share the same or we have common KPIs with other teams. It should be easy. Yeah. Um, it’s about to engage another teams. We, we bring business cases and we bring them pilots and we show them the impact in the KPI, in the KPIs and the clear metrics that they are going to. Obtain of the help to us. Yeah. So churn reduction, fewer repeat calls, fewer track logs, better EPS. So this is the first one is to share some KPIs and, and the same strategy. Yeah. Between all the company. Because if a team has different KPIs And the team have different KPIs. It’s going to be difficult that they are going to prioritize the things you have to to reduce the churn and save the output. So the conclusion when one team, one company solves a pain point, a pain point, everyone wins. This is the first one. And and the second one is a lesson I never forget from a boss. Yeah. He told me try become the trusted friend of of all, of all and help them. Yeah. And more. You help others. Others going to help you. It’s like a Spiderman, your trusty neighbor. Collaboration becomes faster and stronger.

[00:30:07] Egidijus: I remember when you were like, uh, giving this example, which I really love. Um, I remembered like one use case, um, where like, uh, one telco has, uh, quite a lot of bill shock cases. And when we did the analysis, it was like roughly half of the churn was related to the bill shock before. And it’s like, okay, the challenge is to reduce the churn. But the way, uh, but the way the company was aligned around that, it’s like we need to reduce the number of calls to call center. We need to reduce costs there. It’s like, ah, it’s like, this is how you align, you know, uh, even though you are fixing churn by doing some proactive information about the potential bill shock, you say, I will reduce number of calls to you after the billing cycle. It’s like, oh yeah, yeah, let’s do this. You know.

[00:31:17] Gabriel: I’m really glad to to have you right now.

[00:31:20] Egidijus: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The dynamics change, you know, because if you talk only about, you know, journey is not my KPI. My KPI.

[00:31:29] Gabriel: Yeah, it’s my KPI is the contact index, for example? Yeah. Yeah, that’s that’s right. Postpaid Churn Without

[00:31:37] Egidijus: Yes. So it’s like you need to be super creative. And I think you nailed quite a lot of creativity, uh, challenges. Uh, but it’s like, it’s not only about contact center because here it’s like, uh, it’s pretty linked, but, uh, when you talk about, you know, these, uh, uh, squad teams, those Swat teams that you have, uh, uh, how hard was it to build them? Because it’s not like a. I haven’t heard that many companies would be doing like this. I believe it should have taken some time and conviction in the team to align those resources.

[00:32:23] Gabriel: Yeah, you have to. You have to see that sometimes you have to invest in your base and and as, as you say, the benefit is not just for churn, it’s for that user that that is not going to call again. Um, and the cost and the apex of the people and every interaction and the potential churn rate of the user and the revenue you are going to lose if you left the user a go, go, go away. So we, it’s efficiently, it’s efficiently. And, and we see, okay, we have to invest here, but we are going to receive a return of the investment in 2 or 3 months for all the for all the teams. Yeah. For service. For service, for example, is not going to receive any call from the user. Well, in this moment, I don’t know what is going to happen in the future, but but in this moment, sure. This user is not going to call again. Uh, we, we, we invest on that user because they have a lot of time with us. So the team of track they see us is more efficient to invest in a user who, who, who give me a, a lifetime value. So in the, in the time, um, and the third one is more important is about the experience of the user, the customer experience teams, they track the NPS and, and, and totally the churn rate is important. So as you say, this is to show creative creativity to to them. How how’s the benefit for follow up?

[00:34:21] Egidijus: And Gabriel, you as a, as an experienced and senior person, uh, in the retention field, it’s like, how do you see your role in all of this? Because like, uh, I understand the churn KPI that you’re responsible for, but it’s like, like, how do you organize all the things? Like where do you start when you need to initialize these type of initiatives? How do you get the ideas where to start? You know.

[00:34:51] Gabriel: I think there is a combination of some factors, but I think the first one is you have to be focused, you have to be open to work collaborating with other teams. Sometimes you and I told you, you have to have people because more helps. Other people are going to help you and have a lot of curiosity because sometimes you don’t have the answer. So you have to trust on your team and the people and, and find that a patterns in behind the data. You have to be resilient because this is, this is like being a goalkeeper in a team or, or being the, the doctor in a unit intensive care. So you see that some users are leaving and you have to learn about every, every user. And. And I, and I, that’s, that’s the things that. And I’m very open to hear people, people, not just the customer, your team. Your. Your teammates. Work. Agile. Work collaborative. That is very important.

[00:36:17] Egidijus: How do you plan these sorts of initiatives? You know, because in large organizations, these are initiatives are super cross-functional. And usually it means that it will take months, if not years to execute it. So how do you how do you start? How do you make sure that you have a momentum, you know, to execute?

[00:36:42] Gabriel: I think in my experience that you have to identify 1 or 3 pain points and you have to work on that because and, and this is an advice for all that junk. Uh, um, customer managing and tour manager is not trying to do it all at the same time. Yeah. Because the first one could be stressful because churn. By the way, is, is like you are in the, in a, you have like a pressure. So you can turn into a diamond or you can start, you can be, uh, a piece of carbon. So first one is to breathe, focus, not try to do or don’t try to do all at the same time, not try to make 20, 20,000 shiny dashboards. So it’s try to stay focused and collaborate, I think. I think this is the most important thing.

[00:37:52] Egidijus: In the churn. Well, where people churn due to 5000 different, uh, small reasons Focus is really kind of is necessary. Um, uh, basically if you want to like, uh, step. Uh, step away and see these three areas, you know, where, why, what are the basically what? What are the root causes? You know, so it’s really, really interesting to hear, uh, your insights. Uh, Gabriel, uh, one more interesting thing for me was like, how big is your team? It’s like, uh, of. Of like people who focus on retention just to understand how much focused effort do you need? To solve it?

[00:38:45] Gabriel: Well, there is a combination between the focus and, and do the things very fast and very quickly because every day. It brings you new every day brings you different challenges. Yeah. So this is important to focus, but you have to do it very fast. You have to act very fast. So you have a team. Very we we have I am very grateful with my team because they are very resilient. They’re very curiosity. They have the same empathy that I that I have. So, so this is the, the, the, the, the, the first one important and I, I, and I have to tell you something, not every person fits with every company. Yeah. And not every company fits for every people. Yeah. So the recruit is important from the teams who are receiving the call from, from the team that is working in, in behind with me or, or, or is working with, with me hand by hand. They have the, they have to share the same, um, ethics the same. Is the same value the same, the same. They can at least they can think a little bit similar to me because they have to be focused, but they have to react very fast. So they have to you have to have some special skills in on data, on discussion. You have to communicate that information. You have to make friends in other teams. So, so, so that is that is important. And I think that in the, in the managing role that I have, for example, in the operation, uh, we have a, we have to celebrate micro wins that coach 1 to 1 and rehide and reward the right behavior. For example, we start this conversation at cam does not a good reward.

[00:40:58] Egidijus: Mhm. Mhm. Okay. Um, being focused and acting fast sounds like a very big challenge. Um. So, uh, Gabriel, we will be, uh, moving to the last stage of our conversation, and I have a couple of questions that I love to ask all our guests. And first question is, could you share with us your proudest moment in your career of, uh, in the retention field?

[00:41:39] Gabriel: Well, my, my proudest moment was, was, wasn’t giving discounts. Uh, it was early in my career during a merger in, in the, in a company I was working in a junior leadership. I was in that moment and I helped to build the convergence. And that first one synergies. So we start to call that user have mobile services and try to focus on, on, on upgrade the plan to move into to home and, and comparing to convergent. So that was the beginning of my transformation of the, of the journey. I’m very proud to be, to be one of the first ones that do here in my country.

[00:42:39] Egidijus: Okay. That sounds really, really, really exciting. And over those years, I bet there were some challenging moments. Uh, let’s see, what was your biggest lesson or a failure Their story, you know.

[00:42:54] Gabriel: Well, there is some failures you have to learn some of about the failures and the opportunities that their life put you in your, in your life. But, um, actually in that merger, I have to lead the convergent project. So selling mobile services to, I told you mobile services to uh, to users. Um, but. But there were two organizations very, with very different cultures. One were more faster and more aggressive. They want, they were to do it as fast as they can. And the other were more cautious. So more, uh, well, let’s see, let let’s measure the risk. So so you, you, you, I wasn’t in the right in the middle of that clash. Yeah. The typical communication issues occur. So imagine being 24-25 young boy between all the lions. So and what worked in the end. Finding the common ground. Building together. Applying the clear. All of the clear the KPIs. Um, and show them the, the importance of the project and, and and, and finally the failure because I was, I was, I felt some. Oh, I know, I don’t know how to do it with all these people and the failure become part of my proudest moment. Yeah. Because about that moment, I learned it’s important to communicate with the user, with the, with the, with your other team teammates. So failures don’t always give you a lesson.

[00:44:54] Egidijus: So yeah, I love the way you put it, Gabriel. It’s like because you actually made a huge progress with the with the difficult situation that you were in. Um, for those people who would like to start in CVM role or is like starting in this role, how would you recommend to learn, you know, or what would be your recommended way of learning in this field? Postpaid Churn Without

[00:45:26] Gabriel: Yeah. Well, um, there are, there are, there are, there are not a lot of resources, but I, but I want to tell the people who are in that follow CVM Stories podcast. You can learn here a lot of, um, that people who is battling with with data. You can find a book who is fighting with data by Carlo Gold. And I think there is important that people who is who is starting with this and a book I liked so much. His Head Heart and Hands by Alvaro Gonzalez Alorda is a great book. That and that for that people who is going to start how to how to embrace how to work in everyday and, and become. I like, for example, atomic habits one person every day better. So you don’t try to all. As I told you, you don’t try to do it all of the time, but do it one person every day. It will change everything in the future. Yeah. Postpaid Churn Without And a book I like so much is Man’s Search for meaning by Carlo Frank. Yeah. It’s very known in Europe.

[00:46:56] Egidijus: I think it’s like I can share all your book recommendations, like, uh, um, for, for for a while, uh, atomic habits was my favorite book for, uh, like, uh, I know in, in 2025 maybe or 2024. It was like my number one.

[00:47:15] Gabriel: And well, uh, there are, there are many, there aren’t many open resources yet. Um, and sometimes universities are starting to cheat more about the term, about more about more the, uh, the, the customer management, uh, user. But one thing is clear, people who seeks in, in telecom can work in any, in everywhere. And I have a book of you of Exacaster. I recommend that book to. To learn more about, more about managing base. Postpaid Churn Without

[00:47:59] Egidijus: CVMBok Customer Value Management Body of knowledge. Yes.

[00:48:00] Gabriel: Good book.

[00:48:02] Egidijus: Thank you. And Gabriel, the last question for you. You know, we are on a mission to make customer value managers famous. And the question for you is like, how do we do? How do we make those CVMs famous?

[00:48:17] Gabriel: I think I will. As I was telling you, CVM knowledge is still relatively closed. There are many open resources, yet some universities I see, for example, I’m starting to teach more about that. But things like this podcast, things about to read books about the CVM importance and and and and and the other thing important is when a person works in a, in a telecom can work in anywhere. So the industry builds strong, adaptable, talented. So people can speak in these spaces more open more to show them the people the importance. And I think this is important that all the universities starts to to show the importance of the of the how to increase the value of the user in the base. So, uh, there are these three points.

[00:49:28] Egidijus: Mhm. Thank you. Gabriel. It was a really, really, uh, interesting and rich conversation. Thank you for sharing your secrets with us.

[00:49:42] Gabriel: Thank you. Thank you for thank you again for for inviting me to your podcast. And I really enjoy this conversation. I hope the listeners take practical or practical insights, ideas that that they can apply immediately. Independent of the industry that they are. Um, and well, I sent to a special greeting to my team, to my wife and to my family and my team, a special recognition recognition because behind all the action we do, the things we do, they are the, they are the magician. They turned strategy into reality. So thank you, thank you.

[00:50:27] Exacaster: CVM Stories is produced by Exacaster. We help companies take their customer value management to the next level. To stay updated on our latest episodes, subscribe to the podcast or sign up for an email newsletter at exacaster.com/cvmstories.