Summary
A leading construction manufacturer has a business-to-business (B2B) channel business model, where they sell their products to dealers who then sell them to the end customer. While the construction manufacturer had existing advanced analytics programs in the supply chain, product development, and manufacturing sectors, their customer and marketing analytics were sorely lacking, in large part because their B2B2B business model had left them without customer data.
The client partnered with Evalueserve to launch the “Customer Empathy” initiative to create and implement a comprehensive customer analytics program. Evalueserve started gathering end-user data from a few dealers to prove the concept. The program grew once more dealers saw how analytics-driven insights could generate more sales and increase RoI.
The Challenge
The manufacturer had over 150 dealers globally across 13 different industries, but they lacked data or insights on their end users and customers because they sold through dealer channels. The existing culture was not a collaborative one. At the time, the client was facing high commodity and fuel prices and heightened competition, especially from emerging players in Asia and Europe. The construction manufacturer and its dealers knew remaining competitive and maintaining market share would require a more data-driven approach, so they asked Evalueserve to build a customer analytics program.
Our Solution
Evalueserve and the manufacturer launched the Customer Empathy initiative with some of its dealers to help gather, process, and analyze end-user data. Evalueserve used a bottom-up approach, working directly with a handful of dealers to understand customer data and produce over a dozen proof of concepts (PoCs).
Using the successful POCs, we evangelized the program to other dealers. Interest in the program grew as we shared the RoI and results.
Our experts consolidated the dealers’ needs, dissected available customer data, and created a roadmap for the strategic customer analytics program. They worked with the client’s dealers to prioritize high-RoI use cases, operationalize the roadmap, and start winning more business.
Some of the customer analytics projects implemented included:
- Customer segmentation – We developed AI algorithms to predict customer churn. This value-add provided customer churn indicators for modeling low-frequency expensive equipment sales.
- Propensity modeling – Evalueserve helped the client and its dealer identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
- Competitive pricing strategy – Our experts determined optimal pricing for machine makes in a customer segment.
- Price optimization engine – We identified the best ratio for the margin between manufacturer/dealer and dealer/end customer. Pricing is particularly complicated for the construction manufacturer because they sell their products to dealers at a discount. Dealers then decide how much to mark them up for customer
Business Impact
Dealer cooperation was key to the success of the customer analytics program. Evalueserve earned buy-in from independent dealers, convincing them to share their data. In turn, we were able to provide insights and create a more data-driven culture, both within the client and with their dealers.
Today, the program includes dealers in the U.S., China, and other geographies. Most of the projects we suggested in the roadmap were operationalized, providing insights into customers of the construction manufacturer’s products.