Customer Engagement
Insights and Best Practice
Learn how Key Account Managers are making positive impacts, solving real problems for their customers, and building best practices inside their organizations.
Customer Engagement
Key Account Management for Services Companies
Key Account Management is the art of engaging with high-value…
April 13, 2020/by Kelly SharpThe Importance of Key Account Management During a Recession
Even before the COVID-19-induced panic, many economists were…
April 6, 2020/by Alex RaymondHow to Run A Great Client Workshop
In a world with email and text and Slack and Zoom, it’s easier…
March 30, 2020/by Alex RaymondProfile of a Great Account Manager
In a cross-functional team, Key Account Managers are the voice…
March 23, 2020/by Alex RaymondYour CRM is Not Enough: Why Companies are Using Dedicated KAM Software to Build Customer Engagement
In our line of work, we talk to all kinds of people, from all…
March 16, 2020/by Ben BlaskoCustomer Service vs Customer Centricity
At Kapta, we believe strongly in the power of a customer-centric…
March 9, 2020/by Kelly SharpIdentifying Key Accounts
If you’re new to Key Account Management, one of the first steps…
March 2, 2020/by Lesley PoladskyKey Account Management in 2020: Why It Matters More Than Ever
Customers have always been important to business—and they’ve…
February 24, 2020/by Alex RaymondWhy Ad Agencies are Investing in Key Account Management
Key Account Management is the art of engaging with high-value…
February 17, 2020/by Kelly SharpPerformance Reviews for Key Account Managers
When it’s time to do a performance review for your key account…
February 10, 2020/by Lesley PoladskyMake Your Account Reviews Count: Your guide to leading account reviews that drive client satisfaction and open the door to organic growth
Don’t just check the box. Move the needle.
Account reviews…
February 3, 2020/by Alex RaymondAccount reviews…
When Things Go Wrong: Client Communication in a Crisis
Customer engagement is easy when things go well. And of course,…
January 27, 2020/by Lesley PoladskyCategories
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Key Account Management and Account Based Engagement: A Seamless Customer Journey
/in Key Account Management /by Alex RaymondCustomers are demanding more and more personalization. This is just as true in B2B as it is in B2C. As we’ve said before, no matter how niche your industry, your client is still a consumer in the world. As such, they expect a personalized experience with every brand they touch—including yours.
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a means by which many companies are hoping to deliver a more personalized experience. And while it’s a step in the right direction, ABM is not enough: What companies need is Account Based Engagement (ABE). This recent BCG report is a thorough and compelling analysis of ABE, and definitely worth a read.
So what difference does a letter make? Whereas ABM is a marketing effort, led by the marketing team, ABE is a cross-functional strategy that demands alignment between the marketing, sales, and service teams. Because after all, the structures that exist in your organization aren’t mirrored in your customers’ minds—they don’t think to themselves, “I need X from marketing, Y from sales, and Z from service;” rather, they’re looking for partners who can deliver seamless value from start to finish.
Companies who do so create opportunities for organic growth—the most profitable and most resilient form of growth. As BCG says, ABE “shifts the paradigm from just generating and closing leads to orchestrating opportunities in the complex ecosystem of larger accounts.” For anyone experienced in Key Account Management (KAM), this is going to start to sound very familiar—because generating opportunities with existing customers by responding to their specific needs is exactly what KAM is all about.
KAM is a critical component of Account Based Engagement—it’s the post-sale mechanism by which you deliver on the presale promise. And companies with a strong KAM function will find themselves many steps ahead of their competitors when it comes to implementing ABE.
We know it’s a lot of acronyms. Here’s one way to summarize them:
The BCG article breaks ABE implementation into 2 phases: Strategic and Scaled ABE. In this post, we’ll focus on how KAM—and Kapta—are essentially strategic ABE waiting to happen, and how they can help you in your efforts to become an ABE powerhouse.
Strategic ABE (is Basically KAM)
Strategic Account Based Engagement is essentially the low-hanging fruit for ABE implementation. As BCG writes, “Strategic ABE focuses on the needs of a B2B seller’s largest and most strategic accounts.” This is also what KAM does. In fact, companies can use the same process they use to identify key accounts for KAM to identify strategic accounts for Account Based Engagement—because they are the same accounts.
The main difference between strategic Account Based Engagement and Key Account Management is that ABE integrates the marketing team in a more intentional way; whereas key account managers would otherwise be their own “marketers” within strategic accounts, they now have the full support of their marketing team, and vice versa.
In ABE, the marketing team works closely with the KAM team to craft personalized messages to strategic accounts, helping both teams work towards a unified goal, such as driving revenue or improving retention with existing customers. In turn, the KAM team can deeply inform the marketing team’s efforts with a keen understanding of the customer’s pain points and business strategy.
The marketing team can extrapolate what they learn in this process for scaled ABE—the second piece of the ABE implementation process. Whereas strategic ABE is sales-led and marketing supported; scaled ABE is marketing-led, sales supported. Scaled ABE benefits from the marketing team’s close collaboration with the KAM team—in a sense, it mitigates the all-too common risks inherent to a business model where the marketing team has lost touch with the customer, and the sales and marketing teams have lost touch with each other.
Kapta: Your ABE Platform
BCG notes that, “For most companies, ABE represents a major change in how they deal with their most important accounts.” While true for “most,” this will not be the case for companies with a strong Key Account Management function. In fact, for those companies, ABE is really just an extension of the KAM culture throughout other functions within the organization. Let’s take a look at some specific examples below, following the Know, Act, Measure sequence in our KAM Process.
The BCG paper calls out a specific challenge for companies looking to implement Account Based Engagement: They have to “navigate the complex ecosystems of decision makers and influencers that characterize buying behavior in large organizations.” This requires customer journey research and extensive organization knowledge.
Companies with a strong KAM function will find this an easy barrier to overcome; in fact, Kapta includes a dynamic org chart for every client, designed to help companies visualize the relationships they need to grow and maintain in order to build strong partnerships not only with individual contacts, but also with the organization as a whole. This is just one part of the Know piece of Our KAM Process—knowing your customer also drives marketing strategies and content.
Strategic ABE also leverages the Act piece of the KAM process. BCG points out that marketing, within the strategic ABE framework, must be “tied to account goals and plans.” Again, this is where companies already using Kapta will have a huge advantage. Kapta’s Account Planning framework is designed to identify account goals and create a strategic, sequential account plan; when the KAM team already has these top of mind, the joint planning with the marketing and service teams is off to a productive start.
And finally, ABE relies heavily on the Measure piece of the KAM Process. When the Key Account Management team can generate reports that demonstrate clear value, the marketing team’s work is just that much easier.
In short, if you’re already doing KAM, ABE will be a matter of expansion—integrating with the marketing and service teams more fully to respond to customer needs across the entire journey, including presale.
If you’re yet doing KAM, ABE is an excellent jumping off point, as it will normalize alignment between marketing, sales, and service from the outset. In other words, it will make you a more customer-centric organization—and that sets everyone up for success.
Why Now is the Time
There’s never been a better time to put marketing, sales, and service in a room together to align around existing strategic accounts. After all, existing revenue is more important than ever—and unprecedented times can be great opportunities for change. Leaders across functions can see why the stakes are high, and recognize the need to rally around existing customers. Also, to the extent things have slowed down, they may have also opened up time and space for the joint planning and accountability sessions that make ABE work. Ideally, once growth picks up again, those processes are already established, and your organization will be ready to scale the Account Based Engagement approach.
Conclusion
If you’ve already made the leap to Account Based Engagement, you’ve done something we know is hard to do: You’ve shifted your mindset and your operational approach to one that puts customers first. If you haven’t implemented ABE, but you already practice KAM, the good news is you’re well on your way.
KAM is an essential mechanism in and ABE plan, delivering on unique customer needs to drive retention and organic growth, while also providing actionable customer insights to the marketing and service teams.
To see how Kapta supports ABE, schedule your personalized demo today.
Your Key Account Management Tech Stack (and Tech Hacks)
/in Customer Engagement /by Ben BlaskoThere are 3 pillars to building a truly customer-centric Key Account Management (KAM) function: People, process, and technology. You hire talent with the focus and skill to build customer engagement, and you empower them with a clear internal process, supported and accelerated by the right technology.
One way to look at the ideal Key Account Management tech stack is chronologically, along the customer journey:
As we walk through our recommendations for each, we’ll keep in mind the 3 pillars above (people, process, technology) and explore ways in which tech can support and accelerate—but never replace—the people and process that make Key Account Management meaningful.
Tech to Win Business
In a perfect world, KAMs can focus on existing customers, working towards organic growth through long-term customer engagement. However, many KAMs do still participate in the pursuit of new business, which is fine—as long as it doesn’t detract from their ability to serve existing clients.
Whether it’s KAMs themselves or a different team working on new business, there are ways to do so that set everyone up for success—including the customer.
The best upstream fit for a strong Key Account Management function is ABM, or account-based marketing. Compared to traditional sales tactics, ABM works harder to find customers who can truly benefit from your products and services. ABM tailors marketing to meet customers where they are, both in terms of channel and message. By pushing your company to think about things from the customer’s POV, ABM inherently selects for strategic, best-fit accounts—and gets you into the right mindset for long-term engagement.
Since KAMs focus on keeping and growing accounts after the initial sale, their job is easier if the accounts coming to them have already been filtered for strategic fit. That’s why we think ABM and KAM are a powerhouse partnership: ABM to win the right customers; KAM to help them reach their full growth potential.
It’s worth noting that sales isn’t always upstream of Key Account Management; when it’s done well, KAM can be a driver of sales. For service firms who work with customers in a niche industry, winning business isn’t a question of sales or marketing technology at all. Customers generate RFPs, and send them out to a few select firms. In cases like this, the relationships KAMs have made in their careers follow them as they go, creating opportunities for major new business wins. And the value your firm has consistently demonstrated for clients is the reputation that earns you an invitation to the RFP table. As a leadership team, RFPs serve as another reminder that freeing up and supporting teams whose focus is existing customers is not only an organic growth strategy, but also a long-term strategy for winning new business.
Tech to Keep and Grow the Business
You’ve made the sale. Now what? Key account management is how you keep and grow the business, so the partnership can reach its full potential. Key account management builds engagement and drives impact, helping customers reach their biggest goals so you can reach your biggest goals, too.
The right KAM software is purpose-built to support the activities and behaviors that make KAMs successful:
Strong KAM software is relatively new to the scene. For years, KAMs have pieced together ad-hoc solutions for their critical role: They’ll build incredible strategic PowerPoint decks—and then store them in a folder on the server where nobody sees them. They’ll build account plans in spreadsheets, burying the most important message (why are we doing this?) in a cell somewhere. They’ll spend an hour searching their email to find a single client comment.
KAM software doesn’t replace email or PowerPoint, but it does give KAMs and their teams a single source of truth for everything related to a client or project. Dashboards keep the who, what, why, and how of every account and deliverable clearly visible to the whole team, which makes it easier for KAMs to keep work on time, on budget, and, most importantly, on strategy.
Tech to Communicate
We think you can communicate effectively with 3 main tools: Slack for internal collaboration; Zoom for conference calls; email for clear and secure client communication.
Three is a magic number: It gives you the flexibility to harness the strengths of each platform without overwhelming your clients or internal teams. (Nobody wants to be checking 7 different applications all the time, or searching 7 different applications to find a client comment.)
When it comes to communication, there’s not a tech solution in the world that can solve for good judgement. You have to know when to stop emailing and pick up the phone. And you have to know when to put down the phone and go meet with your clients in person.
Remember, tech only works as a pillar of key account management. You have to consider its role in relation to process and people in order to make the most of your tech—and your time.
Tech is Not Enough: Process
In today’s world, there’s a tech platform for everything. (For example, “Yo” is an app whose sole functionality is to send your friends a message that says, “Yo.”) We are bombarded by tech solutions promising to make work more efficient, more effective, and more enjoyable. But do they really?
The answer is: Only sometimes. And only if they are implemented with the bigger picture in mind. Rather than just adding platform after platform to your tech stack, take a step back and ask yourself: What is our growth strategy? What is our process for getting there? Who are the people who will be using this and how does this help them? (Hint: If the software company itself is practicing good key account management, they should be able to help you answer these questions, and use their product in a way that brings real value to your organization.)
When tech exists not for its own sake, but as a complement to a clear internal process, it can be implemented and integrated in a way that lets it deliver on its promise: To make work more efficient, more effective, and even more enjoyable.
Tech is Not Enough: People
Even at its best—fully integrated with people and process, fully integrated with complementary platforms—no tech solution can replace the human element of customer engagement. Exceptional client management takes, among other things, experience, skill, judgement, diplomacy, rapport, time, and effort.
So while KAMs can and should expect technology to support their efforts, they shouldn’t expect it to replace them—and they should be wary of any tech platform that suggests otherwise. Good KAMs know when to meet with clients in person: Workshops, account reviews, presentations, critical conversations, and more. They use their tech tools to prepare, follow up, and implement output from these meetings—but they don’t send an email when they should show up in person instead.
Conclusion
At a high level, you can think about KAM as consisting of 3 pillars: People, process, and technology. And you can think about your technology as a set of solutions placed along different points in the customer journey: ABM to win business; KAM to keep and grow business; and a combination of Slack, Zoom, and email to communicate along the way.
Kapta is purpose-build KAM technology that integrates seamlessly not only with your tech stack, but also with your overall KAM process. Our coaches and services are designed to make sure you make the most of your tech investments, by assessing your overall approach to customer engagement and ensuring you have all the right tools in place (not just ours) to be successful.
To see how Kapta fits into your KAM tech stack and process, schedule your personalized demo today.
Key Account Management for Cross-Functional Teams: Building Engagement with Internal Teams
/in Key Account Management /by Kelly SharpKey Account Managers are the quarterback of their team—and this role gets more complex as the team gets more complex. For example, if you’re an account manager at an advertising agency, you’ll manage your client relationships on one side, and on the other, you’ll work with an internal team comprised of creatives (art and copy), brand strategists, social media specialists, project managers, UX designers, developers, and potentially more. You may also have outside vendors—for example, vendors who build convention booths based on your agency’s design, or build a specific application you can’t execute in-house.
None of these people report to you; you certainly have sway as the owner of the client relationship, but at the end of the day, with the exception of outside vendors, you can’t hire or fire people on a cross-functional team, so you’ve got to get good at working with them.
Another example: You’re a KAM at a software company. You have your clients on one side; you also work with internal teams such as developers, marketers, customer success and training teams, and more.
We spend 90% of our time at Kapta talking about the client-facing side of your role, and that’s appropriate: Your role as a KAM in a cross-functional team is to own and develop the client relationship, making customers your primary focus and acting as the voice of the client in the internal room.
However, it’s just as important to act as the voice of the internal team in the client room. Strong communication and collaboration with an internal, cross-functional team isn’t something you do in addition to client service; it’s an integral part of delivering great client service.
The key to strong internal relationships is the same as with strong client relationships: Engagement. Just as you work to understand your client’s POV, you need to work to understand your internal team’s POV. Just as you actively listen to clients, you need to actively listen to your internal teams. Too often, account managers are seen as the enemy— the person who made the team stay late to deliver the impossible on an insane timeline. This kind of animosity represents a mutual failure on the part of the account manager and the internal team. The antidote is engagement and clear communication.
Here are some specific ways you can engage with internal tames, and be even more effective with clients as a result.
Check Before You Say Yes
As the owner of the client relationship, your main job is to ensure client satisfaction. So it’s understandable that when they ask you for something, your instinct is to say yes. But often, the better answer is, “Let me follow up with the team and get back to you.”
Why? Because nothing builds internal animosity faster than consistently promising the client things that can’t be done, or can’t be done on a certain timeline. Instead, bring the client request to the team. Make sure it’s possible. Ask how much time it will take. Listen attentively and with the assumption that your team is acting in good faith: If they need more time, it’s not because they’re lazy, but because they want to do it right.
At the same time, your role on the internal team is also to advocate tirelessly for your client. It’s okay to negotiate, or to push the team to a better answer. If they say something isn’t possible, challenge them to (a) articulate why, and (b) come up with 1-2 alternate solutions. If they say a timeline isn’t possible, again, ask them to articulate exactly why, and propose an alternate solution that happens faster.
Now, when you follow up with the client, you can either say: “Yes, absolutely, we can deliver what you asked, when you asked for it;” or “We don’t think it will work quite the way you asked, but here’s why, and here are some alternate solutions to choose from.”
When you check before you say yes, you not only avoid animosity with your internal team, but you also avoid making promises to the client you can’t deliver. And it’s much, much better to manage client expectations than to default on a promise. So don’t cave to the easy yes; engage your internal team to make sure you can deliver, time and time again, on your commitments, even if it means saying “no” or “not yet” in the short term.
Present a Unified Front
Whether or not they take your advice, it’s always more functional for your client to have a clear recommendation from your organization, supported by clear rationale.
But a strong recommendation isn’t synonymous with your personal opinion, or the personal opinions of any individual. It’s a collective effort from everyone on a cross-functional team. Much like checking before you say yes, you need to engage representatives from across your organization to make sure your client recommendations are comprehensive and well-informed. You need to hash it out internally. And you need to land on a clear recommendation.
Once you do, present it to the client as a unified front. Use “we” instead of “I,” even if you argued the other side internally. And whatever you do, don’t rehash internal arguments in front of your client.
If it was especially difficult to land on a decision internally, there are ways to express that to the client while still maintaining a unified front. For example, “We discussed this a great deal internally. On the one hand, we know your customers ask about this topic all the time, so we want to include it front and center on your home page. On the other hand, we don’t want to make the home page so long that we lose readers in general. So we landed on a middle path: A short copy blurb and a link to learn more.”
The client doesn’t need to hear you argue back and forth about whether you included the thing on the home page or not. They can hear your thinking and your ultimately unified recommendation, and then make their own decision armed with the relevant info. And you need to convey to your client that your cross-functional team works as a collaborative unit, not a series of disparate stakeholders.
Shield Your Team
Key account managers are, by design, a distinct function on a cross-functional team. That’s partly logistical: It takes a lot of time and effort to communicate constantly with clients, especially difficult or demanding ones. It also takes time to travel for client meetings. Some KAMs even have desks at the client’s office, and email addresses at the client’s domain. At this level of engagement, you need a dedicated person or team whose full-time job is to stay ahead of client communications, and everything that entails: Status calls. Contact reports. Receiving and processing client feedback. Billing and follow up. Contract tracking. Account reviews. And more.
But there’s another reason KAMs are their own function. Just as they’re a liaison between the client and the internal team, they’re also a shield. It’s not always the most pleasant part of the job, but it’s critical. By staying connected to, but separate from, the bulk of the internal work (such as adding software functionality, producing content, writing websites, etc), KAMs have the space they need to act calmly and professionally even when tensions are high.
Say the dev or creative team stays at the office until midnight, working hard to deliver a difficult client request on an aggressive timeline. They’re stressed and tired. The client is, too.
The next morning, the client sends an email with feedback, some of which is fair, some of which is not. As the KAM, your job is to field—and if possible—filter the response. Whatever happens, don’t let your tired, frustrated, stressed out team write a combative email to a tired, frustrated, stressed out client. Be the go-between. Protect each party from each other. Worst case scenario, let the client yell at YOU, so your team can stay focused on the next round of revisions, and you can all keep your eyes on the prize: Delivering a solid final product on time.
Taking on this role for the team is something your internal colleagues will notice, and appreciate. Your clients on the other hand, probably won’t notice it, and they shouldn’t have to. They have the right to take for granted that every response they get from your organization is professional and action-oriented. You might not get credit for being the person who makes that happen, but it’s better than the alternative: Losing a client because you didn’t make it happen.
Conclusion
In a cross-functional team, everyone has different priorities, and that’s by design. Though everyone should be focused on reaching customer goals, they do so in ways that reflect their strengths and expertise. Writers should be focused on making copy clear. UX designers should be focused on great UX. Project managers should be focused on timelines and budgets. And KAMs should be focused on the customer.
In order for a cross-functional team to truly deliver for customers, everyone needs to be engaged. They need to understand customer goals. They need a safe space to hash out ideas, vent frustrations, and align on unified recommendations. And they need to feel that their KAMs are not only the voice of the client in an internal meeting, but also the voice of the internal team in a client meeting.
The way to achieve internal trust and rapport is the exact same way you achieve it with clients: through clear communication, active listening, and strong engagement. Though it may seem easy to prioritize your customers over your internal teams, the time and effort you take to build strong relationships in both directions will always pay off in the end.
We’d love to hear examples from your organization or industry. How do you engage with internal teams as part of your process to engage with—and deliver for—your customers?
To see how Kapta can support seamless collaboration between cross-functional teams, schedule your personalized demo today.