The Customer Engagement Economy is here—and it’s here to stay. That means it’s not enough to win new business. Customer needs are changing, and the only way to meet them is to dive into customer relationships, adding value in increasingly bespoke ways.
Today’s customers demand that you:
- Understand their business
- Make them more competitive
- Deliver on your promises
- Make them a hero
As anyone who works in Key Account Management knows, that’s no small feat. And if you’re still relying on your CRM to get you there, you won’t have the support you need. Why? Because CRMs weren’t built for the Engagement Economy.
Read more to learn why the stakes are higher than ever, why CRMs are structurally unable to rise to the occasion, and how purpose-built KAM technology can help.
Harder to engage. Easy to lose.
If you think your key accounts are safe from churn, think again. In the Engagement Economy, ever-growing customer demands lead to ever more vulnerable customer relationships. Consider these sobering stats:
- Only 31% of companies believe their suppliers understand their needs
- Only 47% of customers believe their vendors deliver on promises
- 71% of companies are indifferent towards or disengaged from their vendors
So who are the companies who are delivering on their promises and building real engagement? And what are they doing well? They’re driving growth and retention through deep understanding of their clients’ needs, clear and actionable plans, and tangible results. They’re moving beyond transactional relationships to more engaged, more strategic work.
Transactional vs Relational
CRM tools reinforce a transactional approach to customer relationships: Sales, billing, issue resolution, etc. All those transactions collect data, but very little of it actually helps you understand your customers better—much less make them more competitive and more successful. In short, transactions aren’t enough to build engagement. For that, you need relationships—and tools designed to help support them.
Relationships can never be fully automated the way many transactions can—but they can be accelerated by purpose-built technology. The right KAM platform prompts behaviors that build engagement: frequent, value-added client communication; strong, strategic account planning; and metrics tracking against key performance indicators (KPIs).
Intention and Infrastructure
Building customer engagement takes a unified approach: People, process, and technology. Leadership must commit to a customer-centric culture, and prioritize organic growth through exceptional client delivery. The right technology enables success for everyone in the organization by establishing and facilitating a clear customer engagement process: Know your customers. Act on their behalf. Measure your impact.
Your Customer Engagement Roadmap
Kapta is more than a tech platform—it’s a customer engagement roadmap, helping KAMs establish a clear framework for doing business in the Engagement Economy. Kapta gives teams a compass to follow, a clear structure for goal-oriented account planning, and an automated, visual approach to metrics tracking.
The result? When motivated teams are using our tech, they are able to:
- Understand their customers’ business.
- Deliver insights that make customers more competitive.
- Deliver on their promises.
- Make customers heroes—to their internal leadership and to the people they serve.
Sound familiar? These are exactly the things customers demand in the Engagement Economy. So while CRMs weren’t built for today’s customers, you’re not on your own. Purpose-built KAM software can help you drive success for yourself, your organization, and, most importantly, for your customers.
To learn more about how Kapta can help you excel in the Engagement Economy, schedule your demo today.
