What Makes Extend Different? Why More Than 500 Merchants Trust Extend

Too many people have had negative experiences with product protection:

Plans that are difficult to understand or are outright misleading
Outdated claims resolution processes, including long hold times on the phone and/or saving receipts
Terms and conditions laced with gotchas, leading to claims denied on technicalities

Traditional product protection companies use claims avoidance tactics to try to approve fewer claims — because that makes them more money.

It’s not good for shoppers, and it’s not great for merchants, either. That’s why Extend was born.

Extend was built to be customer-centric and digital-first, with:

Program design that’s tailored to meet your and your customers’ needs
Program and offer optimization through Extend partnership over time
A customer experience that builds brand trust, affinity, and loyalty

It’s the only modern product protection platform powered by proprietary programs and AI technology to ensure excellence at every phase. Our teams handle everything from integration to offer merchandising and optimization to claims adjudication. Most merchant partners can get a product protection program up and running in just weeks.

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Customized product protection plans

Large, traditional protection plan providers deliver off-the-shelf plans rather than something tailored to what a merchant and their customers really need. Many digital-first product protection providers also use off-the-shelf programs. But these programs aren’t keeping up with the needs of today’s products or customers.

Having an obligor in the Extend family gives us flexibility to offer customized product protection plans and services that meet merchants’ unique needs. Extend works with merchants to create industry-specific, customizable protection plans — a stark contrast to legacy off-the-shelf options.

“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 Stoppel, President and CEO of JEWLR parent company Safyre Labs.

Extend merchant partners can go live with their new programs fast, because Extend has the capability to build its own coverage and rates. Our Programs professionals bring a wide range of experience, including some from long-term incumbents in the product protection space, as well as ecommerce and retail experts who know what makes a great customer experience today.

And when you add a new product 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.

Onboarding and enablement

Extend has a whole team dedicated to onboarding its merchant partners and making sure they’re fully equipped to start selling protection plans. This team handles:

Integration into the merchant’s ecommerce platform
Mapping protection plan SKUs to the merchant’s product catalog
Aligning with and enabling the merchant’s customer service team

Extend already has pre-built integrations with partners like Shopify and BigCommerce, making setup on those platforms even easier. But even for other platforms or API-driven sites, Extend has the technical expertise and resources to deliver a seamless integration.

Then, once the protection plans go live, the merchant’s customer service team needs to know what they are and how they work. The Extend team guides that process, too, bringing the learnings from over 500 previous go-lives.

"I looked into other product protection providers and didn't see anyone that offered the ease of use and level of service that Extend did. Extend made implementation simple and smooth, and everyone from Sales to Support Engineering was there for us at every step." — Gabe Munz, CTO, TYME

Extend is also the only digital-first product protection solution to offer omnichannel plan sales — online, by phone, and in-store. The Extend team gets each retail location fully equipped to sell protection plans, including marketing signage and staff enablement.

Extend has already launched protection plan sales in 4,300 retail locations and enabled 125,000 in-store team members.

Program and offer optimization

As a technology company, Extend has access to data points that no one else in the industry has. That means we’re continuously learning more about today’s customer experience — what shoppers click on, what content they respond to, and more. Extend uses that information to help you maximize your attach rate and revenue.

We act as consultative partners, then do all the heavy lifting and, finally, help you manage your program.

We enable you to better sell your protection plans.
We help you optimize your program.
We don’t win unless you do.

Merchants that work with our in-house optimization experts, on average, 2x their attach rate and increase gross plan revenue by 14%, according to Extend’s internal data.

Delightful customer experience

Extend was built around the customer as its North Star — from the technology, design and user experience to the programs we design — to deliver an excellent end-to-end experience.

Extend serves merchants’ customers with terms and conditions they can understand, followed by a seamless, modern claims experience. Customers can file claims 24/7, from whatever device they choose, whenever they want, via Extend’s online automated claims assistant (called Kaley). Kaley processes most claims in mere minutes.

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For customers who still prefer to talk to someone on the phone, we have friendly, responsive agents waiting to help them during regular business hours. This isn’t your typical call center experience: we aim to answer all calls within 30 seconds.

"Customer experience is paramount to Bear, so it was important for us to align with a product protection provider that closely mirrors our ethos and puts the same emphasis on customer satisfaction that we do." — Steve Catanzaro, Vice President of Ecommerce, Bear

Extend doesn’t win until our merchants are successful.

Historically, the vast majority of merchants were locked out of offering product protection. It just wasn’t worth the legacy incumbents’ time to work with any but the largest retailers and manufacturers. Plus, legacy incumbents don’t have the know-how to work with online retailers, thus forcing the merchant to do all the heavy lifting.

The market today is more competitive than ever. Customer acquisition costs are unpredictable at best. And profitability is more elusive than it looks. That’s why retailers are pushing harder to generate more value and reduce operating costs.

Extend enables its merchant partners to offer product protection both online and offline. Product protection drives revenue without additional overhead — and it delivers a customer service with relatively little effort from merchants’ teams. Extend is committed to its merchant partners’ success, through implementation and beyond.