How Extend Offers Merchants More Flexibility and Better Service as an Obligor

More innovative coverage. Faster speed to market. Improved customer experience. 

These are just some of the benefits Extend can offer merchants now that it has completed its vertically integrated, proprietary product protection platform. 

Extend recently announced that it is now authorized as a service contract provider, also known as an obligor, with respect to its North American operations and protection plans. Having an obligor in the Extend family gives us the flexibility to offer customized product protection plans that meet merchants' unique needs.

And Extend can do it quickly, getting merchant programs up and running in just days.

“Extend is the gold standard in accidental damage protection and extended warranties,” said David Contract, marketing team lead at merchant partner Baby Brezza. “They deliver a comprehensive, credible, high-quality service that plugs right into Shopify [and other ecommerce platforms] and makes it easy to support your customers with the product protection they want.”

What Extend’s Full-Stack Product Protection Platform Means for Merchants

In May 2020, Extend co-founder and CEO Woodrow Levin wrote, “To build a category-defining extended warranty company, you need to own the entire customer journey.” 

Large, traditional providers of protection plans without  full-stack capability  have little incentive to negotiate rates or customize plans for individual merchants. They typically deliver off-the-shelf plans rather than something tailored to what a merchant and its customers actually need. With an obligor in the Extend family, we have the flexibility to innovate in a way that traditional players can’t.

“Acting as our own service contract provider makes Extend a full-service company,” said Levin, “which allows us to offer merchants and their customers a completely seamless experience and is essential to our vision of becoming the ‘AppleCare‘ for everything.”

Offer Tailored Product Protection Plans

When fine jewelry merchant My Trio Rings was evaluating product protection service providers, they experienced Extend’s flexibility first-hand. Unlike Extend’s competitors, which would have treated a three-ring set from My Trio Rings as one item, Extend’s team observed that each set includes three separate rings, each of which could potentially require future repair.

“Extend was a much better product fit and better suited for the jewelry market,” said Vipul Lakhi, the company’s CEO and founder. “We felt more comfortable working with Extend, which adapted to our needs, than with a provider with a very regimented protection program.”

Extend works with merchants to create industry-specific, customizable protection plans, a stark contrast to the  off-the-shelf options offered by legacy providers. 

Plus, Extend’s AI-driven technology optimizes pricing and offer merchandising to maximize attach rates—i.e., the rate at which shoppers purchase a protection plan—and revenue.

Launch New Programs Faster 

Another Extend merchant partner in the jewelry vertical, Jewlr, experienced Extend’s quick time to market. With a very large product catalog and complex ecommerce website build, Jewlr needed a product protection partner that would be able to integrate seamlessly and provide real-time pricing—and they got it. Jewlr was up and running with Extend in just three weeks. 

“Although complex and technical, the onboarding process was quick and efficient. Extend really knows what they’re doing,” said Daniel Stoppel, President and CEO of Jewlr parent company Safyre Labs.

“The transparency and partnership of the Extend sales process was much stronger. Extend’s Sales and Merchant Services teams worked with our business to address our unique needs with a tailored solution and the complete confidence to execute it,” said Daniel.

Extend can get merchants’ programs up and running fast, thanks to ownership of coverage and rates. And when you add warrantable products to your catalog, Extend can map coverage to those products in a day. Compare that to legacy providers, which can take months to handle the same process. 

Deliver Customer-friendly, Loyalty-building Experiences

Resident, a furniture manufacturer and retailer known for its suite of brands that includes Nectar and Cloverlane, prioritizes the customer experience and is always looking for ways to expand on the value-added services they offer. When customer feedback indicated the desire for product protection to supplement their already best-in-class manufacturer's warranty, Resident added product protection.

Now, customers can purchase protection plans that are built for Resident's catalog of high-quality mattresses, bedroom furniture, and bathware. Resident customers get an elegant, customer-centric user experience that streamlines the claims process and takes the weight off Resident's customer service, product, and development teams.

“Extend is ambitious and, after listening to our business needs, explained clearly what they could do for us and demonstrated a true understanding of our industry and, importantly, our customers." — Steve Ryan, Managing Director - DTC at Resident

Baby Brezza, too, uses the post-purchase experience to create customer loyalty and differentiate from third-party retailers and marketplaces.

While Baby Brezza sells products through retail partners, the accidental damage protection through Extend is only available at babybrezza.com. This incentivizes their customers to buy directly from Baby Brezza rather than another retailer, and empowers Baby Brezza to deliver better customer support than a third-party marketplace can offer without Extend. 

“We give consumers the chance to buy our products at larger retailers, but we make sure that the best-in-class destination is our website, first and foremost,” said David.

Legacy product protection makes customers jump through hoops to fulfill their claims, and even when they’re successful the experience can be frustrating. Extend offers a modern, easy-to-use claims process, as well as easy-to-understand terms and conditions. 

And because we’re authorized as a service contract provider for all of Extend’s U.S. operations and protection plans, customers across the U.S. will receive a consistent claims processing and adjudication experience. No matter where your shoppers reside, or what products they’re protecting, they’ll never be pushed off to legacy underwriters that deliver frustrating customer experiences.

Drive Revenue with Extend Product Protection

With more than 600 leading manufacturer and retailer partners across a range of industries and millions of protection plans sold, Extend continues to unlock opportunities for merchants to increase brand loyalty, open new revenue channels, and create lasting customer relationships. The company’s innovative solutions empower merchants to engage customers long after check-out, transforming what has been a forgotten post-purchase experience. 

“Extend follows through on its promises, which leads to greater customer satisfaction. It’s easy to implement and lets customers choose the solution that’s right for them,” said Daniel.

Want to learn more about how Extend can help grow your business? Schedule a demo today.