Driving growth through deeper relationships with existing customers

Driving growth through existing customers should be an imperative for any business. Loyal customers spend more, more often, and can be your organisation’s most powerful advocates. However, not all customers are created equal when it comes to their capacity for increasing spend with you or acting as agents of growth for your business.

We have more conversations with the world’s consumers than anybody else – and a unique understanding of what makes them tick. We can identify the customers that have most value – and most potential value – for your business, and show you precise strategies for leveraging them to unlock new growth opportunities.

How we’ve helped our clients

Fight churn through customer centricity

Customer Strategies, TRI*M, Technology

The issue

A leader in telecommunications network equipment and services in Germany was losing revenue and customers from an important B2B segment. The business had limited budget to address the issue, putting its growth strategy at risk.

Our approach

A TRI*M survey assessed key drivers for relationship strength. Mirror analysis compared customers’ service experience with employees’ perception of their performance.

The insights

Customer retention levels were low - much lower than the competition and among the bottom third of the TRI*M database. Results showed an urgent need to clarify the responsibilities of sales and project management. Employees overestimated their performance and underestimated the need to deliver better customer service.

The impact

Delivery improvements at key customer touchpoints generated an estimated value to the business of over €35 million through significant churn reduction, increased average spend and customer advocacy.

Drive customer spend through improved service

Customer Strategies, TRI*M, Automotive

The issue

An automotive manufacturer in Germany sought to improve and standardise the quality of after-sales services, to increase cross-selling opportunities and encourage customers to upgrade.

Our approach

With insights from TRI*M we developed action-planning workshops for dealerships that focused on their specific drivers of customer loyalty. We prioritised the actions required, according to their business impact.

The insights

Our workshop approach enabled strong buy-in from client-facing employees. The specific action plans helped to improve operational efficiency and quality for each dealership.

The impact

Dealerships participating in the TRI*M workshops significantly improved their customer retention and were much more likely to meet the manufacturer’s defined quality standards.

Taking a bigger scoop of repertoire buyers’ spend

Retail & Shopper, FMCG

The challenge

A premium ice-cream manufacturer sought ways to grow market share by increasing spend amongst their less loyal repertoire buyers.

Our approach

We used an ethnographic approach combining filming, eye-tracking and shopper interviews to help understand the conversion process for the category, and reveal the precise interruptions that would trigger increased sales.

The insight

Previous research had focused the manufacturer’s attention on price, but our ethnographic approach revealed that actual at-fixture decision-making focused on flavour. The client’s flavour variants suffered from low visibility and repertoire buyers tended to miss them.

Impact

A pack redesign to increase visibility of flavour variants, together with improved signage and off-shelf communication, increased sales by almost a third when rolled out across a test region.

Identifying growth opportunities in new markets

ConversionModel, Brand & Communication

The challenge

A major European network operator needed to evaluate which new markets would provide the greatest opportunities for expansion.

Our approach

We used ConversionModel to analyse consumers’ needs and assess their commitment to incumbent brands across a range of different countries.

The insight

We identified the most promising markets, with the largest number of people open to changing their current provider.

Impact

The client launched a new operator brand into the two most promising markets, achieving more than 10 per cent penetration within the first 18 months.

Identifying barriers to growth

ConversionModel, Brand & Communication, Technology

The challenge

An initially successful new mobile operator was struggling to increase its market share beyond 2-3%, and battling low retention rates.

Our approach

We used ConversionModel to explore the brand’s competitive strengths and weaknesses in different regions, and reveal the market dynamics influencing brand choice, retention and conversion.

The insight

Weak network signals and late delivery of SMS messages were a barrier to brand loyalty and acquisition. Only those who were very young, and prepared to compromise quality in search of low prices, tended to remain loyal to the brand.

Impact

Our client’s market share doubled, and retention rates increased by 50%.