For many years, companies have chased customer acquisition at all costs, only to see churn rates climb and lifetime values shrink. It’s time for a fundamental mindset shift. Discover how customer value management (CVM) helps you unlock sustainable revenue growth by focusing on your existing customer base.
For years, businesses have celebrated customer acquisition as the ultimate growth engine. More campaigns. More gross adds. The playbook seemed simple.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: for many, the steep growth rates have stalled. Despite acquiring more customers – churn rates are climbing: Competitors are winning them back with aggressive price discounts. It creates a vicious cycle where companies get their customer back just at an even lower level, which in turn erodes the loyal customer base's price perception, leading to increasing churn rates and shrinking customer lifetime value.
A paradox that requires a fundamental mindset shift. Enter customer value management (CVM).
The proof is in the results: CVM delivers tangible business outcomes
Across all industries, our Simon-Kucher Elevate experts, in joint effort with our industry specialists, have helped our clients implement data-driven CVM solutions that deliver measurable impact:
- A major telecom operator achieved a +20% CLTV uplift with an AI-powered CVM engine.
- A UK operator unlocked €45M in annual revenue through next-best-action tools and retention strategies.
- A regional bank saw 78% of customers prefer tailored offers from a personalized recommendation model.
- A British operator achieved an over 50% churn reduction with segmented, trigger-based retention campaigns.
- A leading MNO in the Netherlands drove a +5% increase in ARPU at the point of renewal by prioritizing validated CVM concepts and BTL portfolio development.
These results are powerful, but they also raise a critical question: if CVM is so effective, why haven't more organizations successfully made the shift?
The growth trap: Why acquisition-led strategies fail
Too many organizations are caught in the same cycle of diminishing returns because they face the same internal pain points:
- Fragmented ownership: CVM is scattered across marketing, sales, and analytics with no single owner.
- Unclear metrics: Churn, ARPU, and “value” are defined differently across teams, making a cohesive strategy impossible.
- Insufficient data governance: Poor data quality and weak documentation lead to a lack of trust in the numbers.
- Fragmented customer view: Customer data is spread across multiple systems (CRM, billing, SAP), preventing a 360° understanding of the customer journey.
- Lack of behavioural customer insights: Focusing on technical and internal aspects rather than on customer purchase psychology
The result? New customers come in, but potential revenue slips away through high churn and low engagement, damaging long-term relationships with customers.
Closing the gap: What customer value management really means
Forget all the buzzwords for a moment: At its core, customer value management is an operating model that flips the focus from chasing new customers to systematically maximizing the value of the customers you already have. It’s about building a single, intelligent view of every customer and using it to turn every interaction into a moment of growth – significantly improving the overall customer experience.
This system works by unifying all your customer data – from transactions to customer service interactions and website click – into one platform. From there, you can apply advanced analytics and machine learning models to anticipate needs, predict churn, and identify the next best action for each individual. This AI intelligence is activated through real-time, automated triggers across all your marketing and sales channels.
The five building blocks of a scalable CVM engine
A successful CVM engine is not a single piece of technology but a combination of five interconnected capabilities that work together to drive growth:
A unified customer database
- The problem today: Customer information is fragmented across systems, making it nearly impossible to create a unified overview.
- How we solve it: We consolidate and govern all customer data into a single Customer Value Hub – a “single source of truth” that becomes the foundation for all customer-centric activities.
- Why it matters: Instead of spending weeks extracting data, teams can generate actionable insights in days, enabling faster and more personalized engagement.
An AI-powered intelligence layer
- The problem today: Most organizations rely on backward-looking analytics that flag churn too late and lack personalization.
- How we solve it: We deploy AI models that go beyond simple prediction, recommending the next best action to increase customer satisfaction, optimizing price points to balance growth and risk, and using GenAI to personalize marketing content at scale.
- Why it matters: Our solution provides personalized offers at every stage of the customer journey, ensuring value growth and identifying expansion opportunities.
Proactive trigger-based customer engagement
- The problem today: Many businesses only engage reactively, after churn has happened or opportunities are lost.
- How we solve it: We design proactive, customer-event triggers (e.g., late payment, quote abandonment, bill shock, promotion expiry) that activate real-time, personalized actions across all channels.
- Why it matters: Customers feel understood, not spammed. Timely, relevant offers build strong customer relationships and increase lifetime value.
CVM governance and operation model
- The problem today: Without clear roles and accountability, CVM efforts remain siloed and inconsistent.
- How we solve it: We implement a governance structure with direct reporting lines, standardized workflows, and KPI-embedded reviews to measure business impact and foster agile collaboration between commercial, data, and tech teams.
- Why it matters: Governance transforms CVM from a scattered “initiative” into a core capability that is accountable, scalable, and directly linked to revenue outcomes.
A business-owned CVM cockpit
- The problem today: Engagement decisions are often hidden in technical systems, limiting transparency and business responsiveness.
- How we solve it: We provide a centralized cockpit where business users can launch triggers, apply quality filters, monitor CLTV impact, and orchestrate actions across all channels.
- Why it matters: The cockpit democratizes CVM. It gives business leaders agility and visibility, ensuring CVM becomes a daily growth lever, not a back-office function.
How to get started: The path to value
We recommend an agile, 3-stream approach to maximize customer value quickly and sustainably:
- Quick wins: Launch 6–8 high-impact, trigger-based campaigns in the first 12 weeks of your CVM project to generate immediate returns.
- Governance: Simultaneously, define the roles, responsibilities, and processes needed to scale CVM effectively.
- Target system: Concurrently, build the future-proof, AI-driven architecture for long-term automation and personalization.
This parallel approach allows you to capture uplift today while building a scalable engine for tomorrow, giving you a significant competitive advantage.
Why this matters: From insights to impact
In today’s market, sustainable revenue growth isn’t just about more customers—it’s about generating more value per customer.
Companies that master CVM don't just survive – they will thrive. They often reduce churn by half, grow CLTV by double digits, and unlock millions in incremental revenue that their acquisition-focused competitors miss. These are the leaders who understand the critical link between sales and customer success.
So here is the real question:
- Can you afford not to invest in customer value management?
And here is the real takeaway:
- Stop chasing acquisition at all costs. Start unlocking value within your existing customers
With our experts from Simon-Kucher Elevate and our deep domain specialists, you can build a CVM engine that turns customer relationships into your most powerful growth lever.
Discover how Simon-Kucher Elevate can enhance and optimize your customer value management
No other consultancy knows more about growth than we do. We live, breathe, and drive tangible growth, running over 1,500 projects every year.
Within our digital practice, Simon-Kucher Elevate, we have true digital practitioners who leverage data, technology, and design to drive digital marketing and sales excellence. With our experts, you will always find the CVM strategy that you need:
- Data-driven approaches: We accelerate projects with high impact on reduced time horizons, delivering a high ROI through customized and individual data strategies.
- Experience of over 500 digital strategy and use case implementation projects with positive EBITDA impact.
- Combination of industry expertise (e.g., our Telco specialists) and data know-how to tailor use cases for your business impact.
- Database with a longlist of use cases and KPIs with categorization by industry relevance.
- Translation of strategic business goals into data-related KPIs to monitor progress and the impact of your customer value management strategy.
Want to know more? Contact us today to learn how we can elevate your CVM strategy. It’s time to join the tech revolution.
