How to change the relationship with customers as consumers and realize business growth? ~ Marketing & Service | Forbes JAPAN (Forbes Japan)

Accenture Song supports the transformation of customer contact points by approaching from the three angles of “Product Innovation”, “Marketing & Service” and “Sales & Commerce”. This time, we will introduce the support content of “Marketing & Service” that creates new value from long-term relationships with customers.

Marketing is the point of contact between companies and consumers. However, the basic style was formed during the high-growth era of mass production and mass consumption, and even after the collapse of the bubble economy in the 1990s, the rise of the Internet in 1996, and the emergence of smartphones in the late 2000s, it has not changed in Japan. The mainstream model is to start with mass marketing and add the digital domain.

For customers whose lifestyles, values, and work styles have changed significantly due to the COVID-19 crisis, it is not enough to follow conventional methods, and a completely new approach is required, especially for Generation Z. What does effective marketing look like? Accenture Song Managing Director Yumichi Hisada and Amane Toyoshima answer.

You can’t reach it with mass advertising alone. How should corporate marketing change?

──Please tell us about the current situation and challenges of marketing in Japanese companies.

Yumichi Hisada (hereafter, Hisada):The conventional marketing method of asking an advertising agency to publish creatives with celebrities cast on the mass media to raise awareness is gradually becoming less effective as the values ​​of consumers diversify. is coming.

In fact, from companies, “It seems that TV commercials and advertisements are not being watched much, so there is a sense of crisis. However, I do not know what to do.” I started to hear voices such as “There is no way to contact customers because the number of customers has decreased.”

At the root of these issues is the lack of “co-creation” through interaction with customers. Companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon that provide great experiences have always focused on customer interaction. Because we know that dialogue translates into value. Global companies consider customer IDs and interactions with customers to be important indicators of brand capital and include them in their asset value.

However, Japanese companies, mainly in the manufacturing industry, tend to leave the sales and dialogue after providing the products to the distributors, and tend not to interact directly with them. Even if a call center is established, operation is often outsourced to subcontractors, and there is a tendency to accumulate neither data on customers nor the value generated from dialogue. Customer service should be a growth opportunity, not a cost.

Just like human interaction, there is no mutual understanding without dialogue with customers in the first place. Instead of managing each customer separately by dividing each department into new customer acquisition = advertising department, existing customer = sales department, complaint = customer support, etc., we support the customer’s life from a 360-degree perspective. You will need to For example, there are multiple car purchase timings and patterns in life, such as buying a new car or considering a second car for a family member. Treating them as individual new customers creates an inconsistent customer experience.

Transforming marketing and customer service requires a fundamental shift in how we understand and engage with our customers.

Yumichi Hisada Accenture Song Managing Director

Amane Toyoshima (hereafter Teshima):Marketing and customer service go together, not separate. It’s important to have a continuous connection with customers who are still there, and to make proposals that meet their changing needs.

Comprehensively understand customers with diverse aspects and build relationships over a longer time frame. Customer experience has always been touted as important, but we will go a step further and create new value by fully supporting the lives of our customers. Moreover, even if you can deliver a great customer experience, your employees won’t be able to keep working overtime for it. Families, friends, society, the environment… We can continue our business only by treating our customers not only as consumers, but also as people, and delivering value to everyone involved, including within the company itself. Accenture Song can help you grow your business through this transformation into a Life-Centric Business.

Amane Toyoshima Accenture Song Managing Director

What does Accenture Song Marketing & Service support?

──What kind of specific support are you providing to help companies transform their marketing and services?

Teshima:We help build data-driven, closed-loop marketing models that are customer-centric.

First, we design experiences around the customer rather than the product or company. Then, grasp how the customer actually experienced it at every touchpoint and obtain data. Once data is accumulated, data scientists analyze it and communicate customer needs and pain points to marketers. Marketers use that insight to come up with new integrated marketing communications measures. Then, together with the creator, we will put it into a creative that resonates with the customer and the company.

The next step is personalization, which optimizes the campaign and creative for customers across all channels and touchpoints. It delivers the intended message to each customer in the right way, according to the scenario envisioned by the marketer. While utilizing the power of technology, we will create content that is both qualitative and quantitative. Accumulate the responses to that communication as data and use it to make further improvements.

The closed-loop marketing model keeps this cycle going. Whether you’re analyzing data or designing integrated marketing communications, it doesn’t matter where you start in the loop. However, building this system requires a variety of specialized knowledge, and the key is to link them together. Accenture Song has talent for all your model building needs.

Hisada:Our focus in this closed loop is why and what. If an advertising agency provides a fixed “How to advertise on which medium and how much”, we should ask “the issues are service, price, business model in the first place”, why and what. go back. How (policies) that truly move people’s hearts and change business and society can only be launched after correctly understanding why and what.

For example, it is common to sponsor international competitions for sports brand exposure measures. But given the moments that matter to customers, showing players using their products during a game can make a stronger impression by immersing them in the watching experience.

In addition, it is necessary to look ahead 10 to 20 years and think about future value, rather than measures that are effective only for about three years, centered on current value. We also provide insight into measures that contribute to business in the long term.

What kind of transformation is being promoted by “Shiseido Interactive Beauty”?

Hisada:We believe that there are two types of approaches for Japanese companies to promote transformation.

① Create a body with a certain scale that promotes reform (change from the inside)

② Create a new business entity (establish a separate company outside and nurture it from the culture)

“Shiseido Interactive Beauty Co., Ltd.” was established as a joint venture with Accenture by combining (1) and (2). Many experts from Accenture’s songs also participate, promoting everything from the development of digital and IT human resources to the creation of culture. The company is trying to lead the construction of a closed-loop marketing system that continues to deliver personalized experiences and content using data.

Teshima:I am fully committed to Shiseido Interactive Beauty Co., Ltd. by being seconded myself, and I am working together as one team to spread and develop these initiatives in the company in addition to the initiatives themselves.

One example of a specific initiative is expanding the value provided by beauty consultants (beauty consultants, hereinafter referred to as BCs). It can be said that BC has been providing the ultimate personalized service, using its expertise to make the best proposals for each individual at physical stores, but it has been in a difficult situation due to the avoidance of contact due to the corona crisis.

Therefore, we have started activities outside the store, such as “1 to 1” web counseling, “1 to Many” web seminars, and LIVE streaming, utilizing the power of digital technology.

In addition, BCs specializing in digital use their individuality to send information on SNS such as Instagram and Twitter. Some BCs have over 5,000 followers and maintain high engagement even though they don’t use ads. YouTube has been played more than 440,000 times in total, and TikTok has been played more than 2.6 million times in total, so I feel great potential.

In this way, as each BC raises its value as an owned media, its skills are improving dramatically. It also leads to the cultivation of a culture of taking on challenges without being constrained by conventional methods by turning the PDCA cycle on your own. Currently, there are dozens of people involved in this activity, but Shiseido has approximately 8,000 BCs nationwide. If the activities of BCs, who know their customers best, become even more widespread, they should become a major force driving change.

Taking advantage of digital technology to restore the power of marketing to companies

──Please give a message to readers who want their company to grow through marketing reform.

Hisada:Fundamentally, a company’s sustainability depends on how it transforms existing business models, such as face-to-face, mass marketing, and distribution, into a digital format. The efforts of Shiseido Interactive Beauty Co., Ltd. will surely provide inspiration to various companies.

For example, the life insurance industry, which has many salespeople, can be applied as it is. I would like to convey this value more to companies that are connected to customers through products and services but do not have data on their conversations.

Teshima:Marketing transformation tends to start from B to C, but it will spread to B to B in the near future. Within 10 years, the mobile-first era may be replaced by a virtual-first era centered on the Metaverse. Regardless of the corona crisis, global marketers are beginning to accumulate results for the next era with the momentum of surging waves.

At this time when the Japanese market is suffering due to rapid changes, I would like to help Japanese companies jump to the cutting edge with the power of marketing. We will do our best to support you.

Hisada:I fully understand the frustrations and limitations. That is why Accenture Song wants to be a force to accompany the struggle and achieve change. We have excellent talent and knowledge for that purpose, and we can also support you on a global scale. The power of marketing can break through the sense of stagnation that fills the world. We believe so.

Hiromichi Hisada◎Accenture K.K. Accenture Song Managing Director. Joined IMJ in 2001 and assumed the position of director of IMJ in 2012. He has been with Accenture since 2016. He participated in Accenture Interactive, the predecessor of Song. He directs the management of customer contact point optimization centered on digital marketing and owned media.

Shu Toyoshima◎Accenture K.K. Accenture Song Managing Director. Joined Accenture in 2005. After working in the Strategy Group, he moved to the Manufacturing and Distribution Division in 2015. As many of the management issues became digital, he focused on strategies in this area and the digital transformation area. Participated in the predecessor Accenture Interactive. From July 2021, he will be partially seconded to Shiseido Interactive Beauty Co., Ltd. as a VP position.