Retail Resurgence: A Canadian Perspective on the Value of the Retail Channel for Communications Service Companies

New wireless entrants are crowding the market and incumbents are responding with price-led offers and discount brands. Not surprisingly, the result has been intensified competition and downward pressure on margins. In light of this development, providers are investing in their channel infrastructure as a means of acquiring and servicing customers more profitably. Based on Accenture research and experience, we suggest focusing on understanding customer needs, optimizing store operations, improving merchandising, and providing a store environment that delights customers and encourages them to continue to visit stores.

In Canada, the retail channel provides communications service companies with perhaps their single most promising opportunity to achieve sustainable differentiation and competitive advantage. Retail stores are important to Canadian consumers, and will remain so for years to come.

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According to recent Accenture research, Canadian providers are not delivering a retail experience that fully meets consumers’ expectations. Furthermore, findings indicate that no single operator is performing significantly better than the rest. This presents a unique opportunity: The telecommunications providers that materially improve their retail effectiveness can differentiate from fierce competitors during a period of declining margins.

This paper—based on a combination of consumer and provider surveys in addition to in-store research—reveals four key areas Canadian communications providers should focus on to build a differentiated retail capability:

• Customer Intent: Quickly understand customer intent to help drive a facilitated sale that better matches customers needs with the products and services that meet those needs.
  
  
• Staff Training and Operations: Improve staffing and training to better serve customers through greater availability in stores, and better facilitation of the purchasing decision process.
  
  
• Logical Merchandising: Providing the right assortment of lead items, accompanied by compelling promotions, to improve retail performance and increase basket sizes.
  
  
• Store Environment: Creating simple store layouts that allow customers to find their products with ease and enable staff to more effectively sell products and bundles.

Accenture’s suggested approach to retail excellence in for communications providers is informed by the experiences of leading companies and our proprietary research. At the heart of this approach are four key aspects of the retail channel that Canadian providers should focus on:

• Customer intent qualification to better match customers needs with products and services
  
  
• Operational improvements to ensure staff availability and training in facilitated sales
  
  
• Simplified merchandising to have the right products on hand to attract more sales
  
  
• Store environments that entice customers to enter the store and spend more
  
  

Learn more about Accenture Retail Solution for Communications, Media and Technology

Patrick Bliley
patrick.bliley@accenture.com
Senior Manager, Accenture Strategy, Canada

John Hoeller
john.p.hoeller.jr@accenture.com
Senior Executive, Retail, Accenture Communications, Media and Technology

David Safer
david.m.safer@accenture.com
Manager, Accenture Strategy, Canada