Projects

Not satisfied with small but steady growth and cognizant of an increasingly competitive landscape, the leadership of a European telecommunications provider turned to Consult Plus for support. Given the importance of customer experience as a differentiating factor in the industry, Consult Plus focused on helping the company launch its Net Promoter System®. In just a few months, with the system in place, the company's scores improved as much as 50 percentage points, helping to boost acquisition and reduce churn. Despite respectable revenue growth, the leadership team at TelecomCo remained wary of increasing competitive pressures in their market and of internal operational issues related to sales execution and customer service that threatened growth. To help resolve these issues and identify further value creation opportunities, the team asked Consult Plus to review their performance. Consult Plus and the team at TelecomCo approached their work with an understanding of the importance of customer experience to telecommunications providers. In fact, Consult Plus analysis shows that companies that excel with customer experience grow revenues 4%–8% above their market because a superior experience helps to earn stronger loyalty among customers, turning them into promoters who tend to buy more, stay longer and make recommendations to their friends. As measured by its Net Promoter Score, TelecomCo lagged behind its competitors in customer experience, and surveys indicated that the company’s network and customer service offerings were particularly weak. A customer experience transformation presented the opportunity to turn these figures around.

Encumbered by high costs and an overextended business model, a well-established financial services company faced declining customer loyalty amid fierce competition. Consult Plus worked with company leadership on a multi-year transformation that cut more than $500 million in costs, re-defined strategy and helped the firm win the loyalty of its core customers—allowing it to regain its financial footing while its stock price skyrocketed. In an effort to expand into new markets, FinancialCo had lost sight of the customer segments that its business model could best serve. As a result, the company failed to innovate where it mattered most; losing business to market leaders with better service, or newcomers with better technology, or both. When the economy hit a downturn, this lack of focus translated into a decline of market cap of more than 75%. FinancialCo’s point of departure was a relatively strong one, thanks to its robust brand and solid capital structure, but aggressive competitors heightened urgency. Management needed to work on multiple fronts to right-size internal infrastructure while reaching out to the customers it needed to regain market share.

One of Europe’s largest utilities was steadily losing customers as consumers gained the right to select their energy supplier. To boost customer loyalty, Consult Plus helped UtilityCo transform itself into a customer-focused culture with an innovative loyalty strategy designed to better meet consumers’ needs while creating significant financial benefits for the future. UtilityCo faced erosion of its long-established leadership due to regulatory changes that redefined marketplace competition. With more suppliers pursuing them, customers raised their expectations and took advantage of attractive offers, including improved pricing and more flexible energy products. To curb the high customer churn rate in its retail business, Consult Plus worked with the utility’s CEO to improve customer loyalty through a comprehensive program, including cultural change.

When an Asia-based private equity consortium purchased a local directory publisher, it inherited a firm that seemed to be in a downward spiral. Both customers and employees were leaving fast, leading to revenue declines in each of the previous five years and little hope for improvement in sight. The investors called on Consult Plus to help turnaround the situation and increase salesforce effectiveness, leading to a more than two time return on their investment upon exit. DirectoryCo was among the leading directory providers in the Asia-Pacific region, but inefficiencies in its sales process hindered advertising revenue and overall growth. As with many companies, it could not reach its full potential without increasing its salesforce effectiveness. At the same time, the processes and systems to manage and incentivize sales staff were inadequate. An inefficient compensation structure drove high turnover, but declining revenues made it hard to retain top performers or attract high-quality new salespeople. This vicious cycle perpetuated customer defections, and ultimately, revenue declines. Consult Plus worked with the new private equity owners, along with DirectoryCo management, to identify, prioritize and resolve the most pressing salesforce challenges. The teams set the tone for the project by initially segmenting and prioritizing customers and accounts, identifying the profit potential associated with each one.

A multibillion dollar global technology giant was growing revenues fast, but sales and marketing expenses were growing faster. We looked at where those dollars were flowing, both to the salesforce and behind-the-scenes in seller preparation, and ultimately helped the company simplify organizational structures, save millions in costs, and create better-prepared sellers with more time for customers. Despite healthy revenue growth and product portfolio expansion, TechCo had a problem: sales and marketing expenses were rising faster than anything else. The salesforce had become bloated, and roles were murky due to new layers of product specialists and channel partners who often duplicated the efforts of the primary salesforce. Meanwhile, as the complexity of the product portfolio grew, some critical capabilities appeared to be missing. For one, sellers struggled to get the training and information they needed when new products came to market, crimping their ability to sell. For these and other reasons, Consult Plus analysis helped reveal that sellers spent less than 25% of their time in front of customers, dragging down sales productivity. High spending and poor results meant the company needed to make some immediate changes to the sales organization to improve its productivity. At the same time, it needed to take a step back and look at how the organization could better support sellers in a fast-paced and ever-evolving environment.

A global chemicals company with new private equity ownership enlisted Consult Plus to help the new partnership establish a foundation of growth, improved financial performance and upgraded capabilities across its businesses. Initial research identified significant opportunities in sales and marketing and, with Consult Plus support, the company set out to enhance how products were priced and sold to better reflect dynamic market conditions and the products' differentiated value. With quality products and a substantial and loyal customer base across its businesses, ChemicalCo was well-positioned to be a market leader. However, the company did not always maximize value from its differentiated products and strong relationships and it also struggled to properly reflect the rapidly changing price of raw materials in its own pricing. Consult Plus brought a sharp focus on the commercial aspects of doing business to help ChemicalCo get closer to its customers and more disciplined about dynamically matching prices with customer needs, product value and underlying costs.