The tools you choose to utilize will make or break your success. In the key account management world, all too often, we see that companies prefer to pair a customer relationship management platform with various software platforms to perform tasks and manage their clients. However, this only hurts your managers and their clients in the long run.
While CRMs do have benefits, once a client has been established as a key account, the best way to ensure your KAMs have all the tools they need to achieve success is to export the data to a key account management software program. By using only a CRM for key account management, you could be missing out on helpful features that will make your KAMs more efficient, effective, and successful.
Are you still using a CRM for all of your key account management tasks? It’s time to invest in Key Account Management Software, and here’s why.
CRMs Are Useful, Not for Key Account Management
CRM platforms have their place, and a few years ago, they were practically the gold standard for tracking and managing a client or contact as they moved through the sales funnel. CRMs are easy to learn and use, making them a popular option for any company managing contacts. However, once a contact crosses over into key account territory, there are a handful of capabilities that CRMs fail to provide.
There isn’t much information to track before a sale besides a name, phone number, email, last contact date, and general notes. But what happens when you want to do more than track the basic information of a client? At this point, things start getting tricky, and companies start implementing other software programs to perform more functions than their base CRM can. This forces KAMs to juggle different programs, input the same data multiple times, and manually track the progress of their key accounts.
In a way, companies using CRMs for their key account management departments are held together with digital duct tape, which can lead to trouble down the road. Building and sustaining strong relationships beyond the sale is the purpose of key account management, but CRMs focus on closing the deal and moving on to the next prospect. To compete in the market, your key account managers must be more than just another vendor and become strategic advisors to your key accounts. Unfortunately, CRM tools are far too limited to help attain this goal, not to mention a waste of money on software systems that are stitched together when you could have one subscription that does it all.
What Does Key Account Management Software Do That Your CRM Can’t
The greatest strength of KAM software is that it has everything you need in one place rather than scattered throughout various programs. KAM software builds upon the base that CRMs provide and give your managers all the tools they need to establish strong, lasting relationships with their clients.
Unlike CRMs which focus on managing clients through the sales funnel, KAM software focuses on building solid relationships with your high-priority customers beyond the sale. KAM software provides a more in-depth overview of each client and their needs. It captures more personalized data and allows you to track goals. It determines challenges unique to each client and provides detailed metrics to help your KAMs provide the best service more efficiently.
With a fully optimized key account management platform, you’ll be able to manage your accounts better and ensure that your key accounts are happy and ready to continue investing in your services. Take care of them, and they’ll take care of you.
KAM Software is the Future
With so many services available at the click of a button, customers expect their account management delivery to be the same way. If your team uses an outdated CRM to manage key accounts, odds are they aren’t providing the high-quality service your customers expect.
KAM software provides your managers and customers with faster response times, proactive management, and in turn, stronger relationships. The days of being bogged down in spreadsheets, emails, and pipelines are long gone and are being replaced by autonomous programs that handle the monotonous technical work so your team can focus on what they do best: building lasting relationships.
Having the right tools for the job is essential for your key account managers to build successful relationships with their clients. Bouncing between multiple platforms, manually tracking setbacks and achievements, and managing reactively rather than proactively doesn’t give your team an advantage.
Kapta is an all-in-one enterprise key account management platform that enables you to do more for your most prominent clients. Kapta offers all of the tools that key account managers need in one place. By integrating Kapta into your daily workflow, you can spend less time bogged down in spreadsheets and more time talking to your clients and nourishing the relationships that matter most to your business.
Built for key account managers by key account managers, Kapta takes the CRM model and elevates it with premium features like Voice of Customer (VOC) Insights and account health scores, so you know where you stand with your accounts at any moment.
To try a free demo of Kapta, reach out to us today.
