Business Challenge

Our client faced numerous strategic threats and opportunities that challenged them to bring new offerings to the market to maintain and grow market share.

Wireless competitors were growing their customer base at a much faster pace and threatened to take an increasing percent of the market share. Our client decided to differentiate themselves by providing the best customer experience in the industry, rather than trying to compete through capital expenditures with larger competitors.

Wireless penetration in the United States was over 90% and projected to exceed 100% by 2012. A key component of future growth was to keep existing customers and attract new customers from competitors. During this time, consumer frustrations with wireless providers created an environment ripe for change.

Already established in the marketplace as a leader in customer service, the company’s churn rates were among the lowest in the industry. Key competitors, however, had made strides in customer service and were closing the competitive gap.

Our client was the 6th largest wireless provider with only 2% market share, competing against Verizon and AT&T with over 66% market share combined and significant advertising budgets. They needed to bring something different to the market that would resonate with customers and bring their brand to the forefront of the wireless industry.

How Andrew Reise Helped

Andrew Reise was engaged to help lead the implementation of the program. Andrew Reise consultants served in multiple roles across the program for over two years. Throughout the implementation, our consultants kept the customer and associate impacts top of mind when making recommendations and decisions. Andrew Reise played a significant role in the following areas:

1. Strategy Development

Andrew Reise consultants were the first to notify executives about the emerging issue well in advance so the company had time to make operational adjustments. Due to customer demand, the company required more sophisticated devices to handle the associated time and call volume.

In conjunction with our client, Andrew Reise facilitated the strategy creation with a cross-functional team of executives and consumer research firms. The team developed a strategy of customer offerings and enablement programs. The plan was shared with and approved by the most senior leaders. Key activities included:

• Validating brand promise
• Collecting customer feedback/perspective
• Mapping the customer lifecycle
• Identifying initiatives and strategic themes
• Aligning initiatives and enablement programs to the brand promise
• Developing businesses cases
• Creating a strategic roadmap

2. Program Management

Our consultants worked closely with the Senior Program Director to stand up and operate the Program Management Office. Responsibilities included stakeholder management, maintaining budget, managing scope/change controls, resource planning, driving resolution of issues/risks, resolving critical dependencies, providing executive status and reporting and managing the timeline.

3. Project Management

Andrew Reise consultants served as the Project Managers for several critical projects with significant customer and internal impacts. This included managing scope, schedule and issue resolution for all program impacts to web and IS, project managing the phone replacement, incentive compensation and customer engagement projects, and working closely with the client team responsible for training, communications and front line change management.

Results Achieved

The program was successfully launched on schedule in Q4 2010. It was one of the largest and most complex programs ever implemented by the client, yet there were minimal issues post implementation. Due to the nature of the initiatives and the grassroots word of mouth approach, results were not expected to be immediate and targets were set at a two year forecast.