In the wake of the recent recession, consumer behavior has changed substantially. Expectations of customers globally are accelerating: they expect the highest product quality, more value for money and better tailored service. Like stated by my colleague Jort Possel in his previous blog post: “Consumers are connecting in more than one way and on multiple devices, consuming more content, and doing it all on the go”.

With the explosive growth of online, mobile and social media channels, customers choose their interaction channel of preference and demand a seamless multi-channel experience. To sustain high performance and growth through uncertain times, companies will need to work harder and smarter to find and capitalize on growth opportunities and to provide a great customer experience.

Some companies were preparing to take a rest over the Christmas holidays, but at Accenture these are always busy times. Renewing contracts, clients who send out RfP’s and a High Performance Marketing Conference (HPMC) that is approaching fast, all very energizing.

Last week I got an update from the HPMC team and was impressed with all the great client stories that they have identified and the speakers they have confirmed for the conference. One case that I am particularly interested in to hear more about is the case of Aviva, a large UK- based provider of life and pension products, which also has a strong position in Europe and other parts of the world.

James Henderson, head of Aviva’s UK Life & Pensions Customer Management will tell the story on how Accenture helped them better targeting their customers by gaining more customer insight through Analytics. Together with the client Accenture created a Customer Analytical Record (CAR) within 6 weeks. This CAR was used for creating several analytical models. The valuable insights that came from these models were used in campaigns.  This has allowed us to profile, segment and understand the customer base in a new way. We made  discoveries about Client’s customers such as second policy purchase behaviour, tenure and product holdings, average policy and product holdings, life stage and wealth stage segments.

Key results from the project; reduction of throughput time with up to 25% and an increase of conversion of 200%

The cool thing about this case is that the solution was made in a truly global way, by leveraging Accenture’s customer insight center in Milan, Indian analytics experts for the creation of the models and local management consultants from the UK who created actionable insights from the analysis. The models are hosted by Accenture and now available for Aviva as hosted or managed service.

On February 9th 2012, Accenture organizes the 7th High Performance Marketing Conference at the WTC in Amsterdam with the theme: “Creating Customer Value in a Cross Channel World”. Get up-to-date on the latest innovations in Marketing, Sales and CRM. Broaden your scope by attending presentations and break-out sessions on leading practices implemented at KLM, Canon, SAS, Aviva, Accenture and others.

Would you like to know how Aviva and Accenture realized this transformation, please register: http://www.accenture.com/Microsites/hpmc/forms/Pages/register.aspx