Customer loyalty is a tenuous thing today. As customers start viewing corporate brands as commodities, and when they can so easily search and compare online for exactly what they want, it’s much tougher to dissuade them from buying elsewhere. It becomes essential, more so than ever before, to have a customer-focused strategy and operating model that helps the company stay relevant, competitive and profitable. In other words, companies have to understand what really motivates buyers, then identify and get much closer to their most valued customers and clearly demonstrate what differentiates their offerings from those of their competitors. That’s what high-performance businesses do. Accenture High Performance Business research shows that high-performance businesses consistently provide products and services that support their brand promises and are tailored to the preferences and expectations of specific customer segments. High-performance businesses are well aware that the stakes are getting higher. It’s getting harder to predict customer behavior and in the current economic downturn, there’s enormous pressure to cut costs—a factor that if applied indiscriminately, can damage trust, leave customers more receptive to competing offers and make them harder to win back. Accenture’s work with high performance businesses confirms the value of investing in actionable segmentation and analysis to know current customers deeply—and to identify and reach out to new customers. We offer a range of solutions that help companies understand changing customer behaviors, predict future needs and preferences and make more profitable decisions about offerings, pricing, channel strategies and marketing campaigns. We help build innovative channels and strategic relationships so that businesses can reach the right customers at the right time and engage them in two-way dialogues that build trust, strengthen the brand and uncover new opportunities for innovation and growth. The high-performance businesses that excel at customer centricity will be those that keep a balanced focus on growth as well as customer retention and cost management. They won’t just survive the current economic slump – they’ll come out of it stronger than before. Research & Insights
Read Accenture insights on achieving high performance by becoming customer-centric.  Customer Acquisition and Retention
The global economy has entered a new and complex phase, bringing with it a heightened sense of uncertainty and risk. The contours of the commercial landscape have been reshaped by unprecedented levels of competition, the quickened pace of innovation and eroding customer loyalty. In this podcast, Woody Driggs, Managing Director of Accenture’s Customer Relationship Management organization describes why customer centricity is key to sustaining performance in uncertain times.
Customer Centricity Customer Acquisition and Retention: Back to Basics
To survive and even prosper in uncertain times, the clearest path to high performance is to stay focused on the basic principles of customer-centricity. Customer Acquisition and Retention: Gaining Consumer Trust and Competitive Advantage through Sustainability
Leaders use sustainability to drive high performance by approaching their current sustainability challenges as an opportunity to get closer to customers and find new business opportunities. These organizations are poised to emerge as winners in an increasingly competitive business environment-even in the face of worldwide economic challenges. Customer Acquisition and Retention: Using the Customer Experience for Competitive Advantage
In a time of economic uncertainty—when customer confidence is low and customer behavior increasingly difficult to predict—delivering a customer experience consistently aligned around customer needs and intentions is more important than ever. How to Make the Most of the Great Consumer Trade Down
As discretionary spending all but disappears, companies must make adjustments in product mix, pricing, promotions and channel strategy to deliver the innovation today’s customers value. It's Only a Matter of Time
Businesses that thoughtfully examine and measure the time customers spend with them, and then either reduce the time costs or enhance the time value of their offerings, can gain an advantage that will continue when the economy recovers. Marketing Mastery: How High-Performance Businesses Drive Profitable Growth
Accenture research suggests that market leaders climb to the top of their segments by building incredibly strong bonds with their customers. They've done so by mastering the skills and capabilities that form the core of marketing—especially those identified as having a significant impact on loyalty—and by recognizing that responsibility for "marketing" is shared across the organization. Mastering the Art and Science of Sales: Accelerate the Journey toward High Performance
Creating a sales capability that can drive growth around the world is clearly vital to high performance in today’s global business environment. Accenture’s experience, backed up by its High Performance Business research, indicates that only companies that optimally balance the art and science of sales can achieve this goal. The Road to Recovery: A Report on Consumer Behavior in the New Economy
Accenture researches consumer behavior during the recession, and suggests ways to leverage these insights. Why Customer Centricity Matters: Sustaining High Performance through Uncertain Times
The global economy has entered a new and complex phase, bringing with it a heightened sense of uncertainty and risk. The contours of the commercial landscape have been reshaped by unprecedented levels of competition, eroding customer loyalty and the quickened pace of innovation. Strategic Cost Management Strategies for Managing Front Office Costs Podcast
In this podcast, Robert Wollan, Accenture CRM lead, North America, discusses the opportunities companies have to strengthen customer relationships and expand their markets while staying cost-competitive and profitable—by taking a disciplined, data-driven approach to managing front-office costs. Managing Front-Office Costs
Many organizations face a difficult challenge: reduce front-office costs but stay responsive to changing customer needs, competitive risks and growth opportunities. Even in challenging times, organizations have opportunities to strengthen customer relationships and expand their markets while staying cost-competitive and profitable--by taking a disciplined, data-driven approach to managing front-office costs. Customer Retention Customer Acquisition and Retention: Customer Loyalty
Keeping and expanding customer relationships depends on the ability to create loyalty by delivering a customer experience tailored to changing customer needs and values. Customer Satisfaction in a Multi-Polar World: Findings from the Accenture Global Customer Satisfaction Survey
Our 2008 survey of consumers around the world found that the customer experience continued to fall short this year, contributing significantly to churn. In fact, the survey found a significant jump in the percentage of respondents who had quit doing business during 2008 as a result of poor customer service—67 percent compared to only 59 percent in 2007. Customer Acquisition Customer-Centric Principles for Acquiring New Customers in the Multi-Polar World
Many of the world’s emerging markets have continued to enjoy solid growth in consumer spending, bolstered by population growth, an emerging middle-class of aspirational consumers, rising per capita incomes and greater credit availability. These new sources of consumer spending may help businesses counteract sagging demand in Western economies and build a base of new consumers for the upturn. However, many traditional approaches to identifying, reaching and satisfying buyers will need to be refreshed or even retooled for these emerging consumer segments. Price with Confidence
When market demand starts to slacken and customer behavior becomes harder to predict, sales teams may agree to less advantageous pricing, undermining strategies for growth. Companies should root out the common causes for this phenomenon and foster a performance anatomy that helps sales teams price with confidence.  To Top
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