Situation: A manufacturer realized that a shift in the railing market from one product type to another was only part of the reason for declining sales, and wanted to better understand the reasons for dealer defections contributing to this lost revenue.

Approach: Principia first spoke with key buying and non-buying accounts to define product, service and image issues involved before conducting a robust voice of the customer survey with 750 companies. Customer expectations and performance criteria were defined, along with benchmarking how the client stacked up against its peers, to identify performance gaps and pinpoint areas for improvement.

Outcome: The client increased share by 3 percentage points in the first year, followed by 5 additional points over the next two years as a result of implementing several new service-oriented programs to raise transactional performance at new and existing accounts.