CLOSURE TAKES CARE OF SUBSCRIPTION CANCELLATIONS AFTER A LOVED ONE’S PASSING

When a friend of Closure founder Graciëlla van Vliet got a Facebook notification about a loved one who had passed away years before, it raised the question: why isn’t there some central place to report when a person has died? It turned out to be a gap in the market and Graciëlla had found her mission: to create a one-stop platform where people can report the death of a loved one and wind up all their memberships, contracts and accounts. Five years on, one in four deaths are reported through Closure, and Graciëlla heads a young and dedicated team in a beautiful office in the Groot Handelsgebouw.

The company’s vision is to help people who have lost a loved one get through the pain and making it as easy as possible to close and cancel all their accounts, memberships, subscriptions and contracts. “We’re a people-friendly, data-driven external help desk for people coping with loss,” Graciëlla explains. “While we are offering support to the heirs of the deceased, we also make the process easier for subscription providers, telecom providers, utility companies and charities, for instance, by taking over that supportive role from them.” Closure operates on a B2B model, in which a death is reported to a corporate partner (a subscription provider) primarily via a web form or phone that is then handled by the Closure team. After informing the respective organisation, heirs can make use of the possibility to easily share the death notification with all other organisations that need to be informed. Heirs pay nothing. Graciëlla’s company currently partners more than 150 funeral homes and large clients including T-Mobile, Interpolis, OV-chipkaart, Knab, Unicef, Oogfonds and all DPG Media brands. “We can take care of thousands of notifications daily from different organizations because we’ve invested so much in automating the process. Our magic happens behind the scenes, where we have a very solid operation to quickly wind up death notifications in a very customer-friendly way.”

European Market Leader

In the past year, Graciëlla and her team took a first step across the border, to Belgium, and they also have plans to expand into the UK. “Because of the type of clients we work with – such as banks, telecom and insurance providers – our sales cycles are long. Based on our analysis supported by DutchBasecamp, we know that our main potential is in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the United States.” Closure’s vision for the future is fixed on increasing customer satisfaction and reducing client contact costs. At the moment, these efforts are concentrated largely on optimizing the process around death notifications, but Graciëlla sees openings to expand to other “key moments in life” as well. “From assisting those who have lost a loved one to possibly enhancing customer care solutions across a broader spectrum of terminations or changes, as a result of marriage, divorce, debt restructuring or relocation. We are experiencing tremendous growth process-wide, so it’s a wonderful challenge.”