Context

Our client, a major UK real estate owner, has a highly ethical Purpose that it has publicly committed to, and which guides all its operations. However, it cannot realistically deliver the Purpose on its own – its customers are critical parts of the ecosystem. 

The client recognised that the tenants and users of their assets (“Customers”) could play a key enabling role in helping the organisation fulfil its purpose. They aimed to be more responsive to the evolving needs of the customers by tailoring their customer value propositions to deliver on organisational purpose and by attracting the customers they want to have for their assets.

Mandate and Approach

The client asked us to help them redesign the customer relationship management model to enable the organisation to apply a more targeted approach, allowing them to deploy resources more effectively based on the customers’ value to their assets – both financially and socially. The purpose of the new relationship management model is to ensure that the client’s high-value* customers could act as enablers more efficiently and consistently.

*High value is not defined solely by financial worth but also by their ESG impact.

We assessed the customers’ commitment, and ability to contribute, to the client’s purpose by SBU, sector and location. We recommended that they should create the closest relationships with those who have the greatest potential to help the client organisation achieve its purpose.

Having a clear view of the relative value of the customers to the organisation, the client could drive its customer acquisition strategy accordingly, create value-based services level agreements and provides customers with guidance and a road-map of approaches and improvements they could make to enhance their contribution.

Deliverables and Impact

Through engaging with the leadership, central and sector teams, we created a tool to help identify current and potential customers who are better able and more inclined to support the Purpose, and an approach to shaping value propositions that are tailored to such customers.

The organisation now has a common language and understanding of how customers contribute to the Purpose, and an approach that amplifies the organisation’s impact, creates multi-dimensional value and reduces reputational risk. It can profile customers on social, environmental and financial terms, and drive important and challenging conversations to amplify and accelerate the positive change needed for our planet.

The engagement delivered several key assets. These included a Value Creation Framework and a Customer Prioritisation Framework—a tool that ranks customers based on environmental, social, and economic metrics, with weightings tailored to the sector in which each customer operates.

In addition to these frameworks, the client received a set of customer scorecards that offer a detailed view of customer contributions. We also introduced a Customer Experience Model that informs how the client allocates resources in line with each customer’s overall value—supporting a more targeted and purpose-aligned customer engagement strategy.