Moving Ahead & Staying Ahead Of the Competitors

In today’s highly competitive markets, increasing numbers of companies realize that, building strong relationships with key customers is crucial to their success. It’s the quality of relationship that guarantees consistent and predictable business from any customer. Company executives today need to learn, how to make the account strategies work. Here are few areas to explore and stay ahead of competitors.

Building Long-Term Relationships

Most businesses sustain because of their key customers; they bring the stability to the business. These customers are aware of their contribution to your revenues and how their decision affects your bottom-line. Pareto analysis could be the simplest way to segment your key accounts, which also links your business risk to the quality of relationships with them.

Most companies have portfolio of regular customers, but few truly understand why they regularly come back. Quality, Service, Flexibility, Delivery and Cost (QSFDC) could be few fundamental factors to explain it. However, you cannot rely only on these factors to retain a customer in the future because competitors are driving equally aggressive and innovative strategies to break into your key accounts.

Your key accounts are venerable to competition so take responsibility to provide them the service they need. In managing these relationships effectively, it is important to take a long-term strategic approach, than focus on short-term gains. Key accounts management is a relationship-building process, and not just another sale.

Listen and Speak the Customers Language
It is imperative to listen and speak your customers’ language and provide more support than just a product. It’s your liability if the goods are accumulating in a distributor’s warehouse instead of being consumed by the market.

You need to gain in-depth information about your customers’ business, their market trends, their competition, their business model, their concerns, their strategy and their view of you as a supplier. You have to use their lens and see what is important for them. Spend significant time, and effort to manage and enhance these relationships systematically. Work closely with your key accounts to build trust and confidence, also ensure to resolve problems without damaging the relationship.


Bring the right team together
It is vital to keep the customer updated at all levels by communicating effectively and efficiently with them. Identify a cross functional team that interacts with the customers’ organization, most commonly finance, logistics and customer services interactions are quiet frequent. Leverage it to gain better understanding of the customer. Information gain from various sources would be critical in identifying potential business opportunities.

The team (depending on your business) would by represented by these departments: Sr. Management, Account Manager, Customer Service, Logistics, Finance, Sales & Marketing and Technical Support. A well-balanced team can support customer demands and provide excellent service. It is also important to have single point of contact for the key account, usually a key account manager, who is supported and kept up to date by this team.

Equally important is to identify the characteristics of the customer’s team, which helps in forming your customer strategy and relationship building too:
Sponsor: This could be a sr. executive and key decision maker, who has influence, authority & power to sign and approve your strategy. He may not be technically inclined & may rely on his experts for recommendation.

Anti Sponsor: Like the Sponsor, this executive will also have high levels of authority and/or influence in the organisation and will not support you and your strategy. In fact they may try to directly oppose it.

Partner/Coach: One of the most important players in your account strategy, this person has credibility with other senior executives throughout your customer’s organisation and is willing to support and promote you.

Key Players These Executives may not directly be involved approving your deal but they do have credibility, authority and/or influence and therefore are important to your overall customer

Establish KAM Process
A systematic approach to account planning is vital in analyzing information and creating business opportunities. Keep the account management process simple and pragmatic. Follow the four basic steps to manage account planning process.

Step 1: Analyze your current situation
Gain market intelligence. Include competitors’ strategies, market share & biz environment. Note your performance and competitors’ performance in the key account. Identify your team & relationship index on a sale of 1 to 5 with the customer.

Step 2: Analyze Customers Current Situation
Details of the customers’ team, their buying segment & your share in it, competition, strategy, market trend and concerns. Collate all this information in a simple template for reference.

Step 3: Where can you add value?
Several issues would uncover during the analysis, identify issues where your expertise would be most valuable to the customer. Solutions selling & new opportunity identification is the net result. It helps in preparing the action plan and positioning yourself better.

Step 4: Share it with your Customer
Share the account plan with your customer, their views are critical to your success. Modify plans accordingly and share it regularly to meet the market demands.

Execute…
Successful execution of the plan builds customers’ confidence in your organization. It helps in securing a sustainable and predictable business resulting in better planning and future growth.

Contributed by Training Edge Editorial Team