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The rise in digital adoption and a culture of instant gratification is increasing as the result of the tech-savvy, mobile-first generation entering the work and marketplace. Switching brands is commonplace now, as loyalty is always based on the last experience. Given that 75% of South African consumers shifted their spending last year due to lacklustre customer service, broken promises and poor experiences, failing to have a strategy to address this inevitably means that brands will fail to compete.

As customers become less traditional and more unpredictable, traditional models of servicing, advertising and marketing to sell products no longer work. Brands can only succeed when they deliver a personalised customer experience specifically targeted to their audience that they can get nowhere else. This necessitates innovative and disruptive ideas to match that of the technology driving this customer revolution.

Enter a new breed of agency, the Customer Experience Agency. Wayne Hull, managing director and head of Accenture Digital and Accenture Interactive, explains: “A great experience is one that is exceptionally hard to replicate by competitors. Innovative and engaging customer experiences are only created when intelligent design and applied intelligence meet technology and brave business thinking.”

Accenture Interactive is the only agency that can combine these components and deliver return on investment at scale. “Our pedigree in insight and the creative use of data improves these experiences for our clients by continually making them more efficient, personalised and relevant.” Digital becomes the facilitator of these can’t-live-without services that change people’s behaviour in their physical lives and drive sustainable revenue, value and growth for the brands that provide them.  

Last year, Accenture Interactive successfully re-imagined the employee resignation and retirement experience for one of South Africa’s leading insurance companies. Design lead Emma Carpenter describes the solution. “With up to 25 000 members resigning each month, we simplified and redesigned the entire process, changing customer behaviour by visually educating and encouraging members to save their pensions. The new experience has had a profound impact; halving the cash-out rate and growing the preservation rate by 382%. This translated to millions of rands in retained funds.”

Placing the customer at the heart of the solution, Accenture Interactive leads in an experience-led market, powered by applied intelligence and design. By being hyper-focused on the customer and agile enough to offer new, integrated experiences that flex to accommodate each individual across the entire customer journey, they ensure that brand experiences aren’t just interfaces, but drive long-term holistic customer relationships.