The Value and the Role of the Retail Channel for Communications Service Providers

We approached the research program in two phases: the first phase was an online survey of more than 3,000 consumers in 18 countries (representative across age, gender, education and occupation), and the second phase involved interviews of more than 50 senior executives at leading global communications providers. This report provides the complete results of our study.

Learn more about Accenture Research for the Communications Industry

With the emergence and popularity of online shopping, Accenture set out to determine if the physical retail store was an important channel for customers to purchase and/or receive support for their communications products and services, and how communications service providers viewed the physical retail channel. Our research explored the following issues:

• The extent to which consumers globally value a physical retail presence when purchasing communications-related products and services.
  
  
• Consumers’ opinions on how well their communications provider is performing in the retail arena.
  
  
• The characteristics of a physical retail store that consumers view as most critical to attract and retain them as customers.
  
  
• How effectively executives of communications providers believe their companies are leveraging the retail channel.
  
  
• How well providers’ retail stores fare on a variety of criteria.
  
  
• Providers’ strengths and weaknesses in six key retail capabilities, including standardized operating procedures, talent management, information systems, performance metrics, supply chain and use of analytical tools.
  
  
• Providers’ plans for their company-owned stores in the next two years.

Our research revealed several key findings:

• Consumers and providers agree on the importance of the physical retail channel.
  
  
• Providers plan to increase their presence in physical retail over the next two years, emphasizing company-owned stores.
  
  
• Upon expansion, carriers must understand the areas in which they need to improve in developing their stores to attract and retain consumers.
  
  
• We identified leaders, a group of providers that appear to be further along in developing their physical retail capabilities, and laggards, providers that weren’t as mature in the six capabilities we covered in our survey.

“Retailization” of companies that traditionally have not had a physical, direct-to-consumer presence is increasing. Communications companies believe stores are a key to their growth and have ambitious plans to expand their physical retail presence in the coming years.

Based on the findings of our research, Accenture recommends several key actions carriers should take as they pursue the physical retail channel:

• Providers should develop and regularly refine a retail strategy that supports their overall business strategy and considers the current and desired future state of their retail capabilities.
  
  
• Cross-channel shoppers are significantly more valuable than single-channel customers. So carriers should establish a strong multichannel experience with the same level of customer experience in all areas.
  
  
• Providers should assess their supply chain and HR/training capabilities for improvement opportunities and identify ways to leverage these areas to differentiate themselves from their competition.
  
  
• Communications providers should tailor their retail experience to appeal to key customer segments. A one-size-fits-all model is not a successful approach. Analytics is an extremely beneficial tool for carriers’ to use to target their customers.