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
Five Questions To Ask When Rolling Out KAM Software
At Kapta, we want you to be more than just a vendor; our key…
November 2, 2020/by Alex RaymondWhat IS a Key Account?
Key account management—focusing on the development of a company’s…
October 26, 2020/by Alex RaymondAccount Managers: Close out the Year Strong
It’s the final quarter of the year—time to assess where you…
October 19, 2020/by Alex Raymond5 Ways to Weather a Recession with Key Account Management
Here’s a radical thought: Recessions don’t change anything.
Okay,…
October 12, 2020/by Alex RaymondOkay,…
How to Keep Up with Customers and Colleagues This Year
It’s been a long, weird year (and it’s not over yet). We’ve…
October 5, 2020/by Alex RaymondIs Your Customer at Risk of Churn? 5 Ways to Find Out.
It’s a key account manager’s worst nightmare: One day, out…
September 28, 2020/by Alex RaymondHow to Train Your Clients: Three Strategies for Client Education
It’s easy to think of clients like we think of the weather:…
September 21, 2020/by Kelly SharpCustomer Insights Workshop: Tools and Best Practices
You need to know your customers. But you can’t read their minds.…
September 14, 2020/by Alex RaymondAre You Managing Your Accounts? Or are THEY Managing YOU? Five Questions to Ask
If you’re an account manager, you should always be asking yourself:…
September 7, 2020/by Alex Raymond3 Reasons to Update Your Customer Org Charts
Be honest: When was the last time you took a long look at your…
August 31, 2020/by Kelly Sharp3 Ways to Calculate an Account Health Score
Whether it’s losing a key account or not meeting internal growth…
August 24, 2020/by Alex RaymondThe Seven Deadly Sins of Key Account Management
It’s easy to spot the biggest sin of all in client management:…
August 17, 2020/by Alex RaymondCategories
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What To Do When Your Client Executive Sponsor Leaves
/in Key Account Management /by Melissa RogersIf your stomach flipped just reading that headline, we get it. Great client relationships take time and effort to build, and losing a trusted advocate within your customer’s organization can be crushing. News of personnel changes on the client side can introduce all kinds of woes: the loss of possible years spent building good rapport, a threat to the security of smooth, or at least to-be-expected, day-to-day operations, and, worst of all, your company’s ownership of the business may be at risk altogether.
But it doesn’t have to be all doom-and-gloom! Losing an executive sponsor presents a fair amount of risk to the account, sure, but it’s also a moment of opportunity. When uncertainty looms, keep your head in the game and stave off panic with a few specific, strategic steps.
Review the Org Chart
Your client org chart is invaluable in this scenario, and if you duly followed the first step in Our KAM Process™ of getting to KNOW your customer, you should have an org chart that’s robust, up-to-date, and ready to help in this exact situation.
Ask yourself: who are your next most valuable players on the client team? Is there someone else you can connect with, that may be willing to knowledge-share and shepherd you through this period of transition? Do you already know the person taking over? And if you don’t have any of these secondary strong relationships, are there other people on your team who might?
If you find yourself in a situation where you’re not getting much support or insight from the client, don’t be afraid to explore new links of communication. Is there someone higher up the executive chain, on either side, that may be able to make things easier? Of course communication and outreach should always be thoughtful and tempered, but now is not the time to slink into the background because you don’t know where to go or who to ask. As a key account manager, you may have to overturn stones you haven’t before.
Schedule (Actual) Face Time
As soon as you know who your new executive contact is, set up a meeting. In-person — or as close as you can get to in-person — is best. Reintroduce Our KAM Process™, even if it’s already been done; this new person may have a different vision for their business’s needs and goals. Discuss the following and listen to your new contact’s perspective with a willingness to learn:
Demonstrate your value by asking candid questions. Be aware that business-as-usual may not be guaranteed; in fact, you may find yourself in the position of having to resell this new contact entirely. But start with the basics, before reinventing the wheel — again, proactively following Our KAM Process™ should keep the relationship in good shape. If you run into roadblocks, it’s ok to ask the client, “do you have an open mind on this?” to make sure they’re willing to work through transition pains and stay on board with you. Upsells and big ideas can come later; now is the time to reestablish the business, educate your new contact if needed, and build a solid cadence from which to move forward.
Lastly, remind yourself that this change could mean good things for the business! Big changes can breathe new life into the way your two companies do business together.
Honor Existing Relationships
If you have any control in the matter, try not to let your previous contact slip out of sight and out of mind — especially if it was a notably strong relationship. And even if it wasn’t an exceptionally strong relationship, take the time to thank your former contact and wish them well. You never know where a person will land in the future, and how their needs may come back around to work in your favor. All business relationships represent an opportunity to cultivate your personal network, so before you get caught up in what’s next, take a moment to appreciate what was. You can’t go wrong.
Conclusion
Change in business is rarely much fun, and a shuffle within your immediate client team can be stressful, if not calamitous. But moments of ambiguity and transition can also be an opportunity for you to show value as a calm port in the storm. Rely on your client org chart to help you be creative in finding new client connections, get in front of your new contact and stick to Our KAM Process™, and you should be able to minimize risk and even benefit from a fresh perspective.
Looking for more guidance from Kapta? Try out our new online course for key account management to help you master the skills you need to navigate your accounts in times of uncertainty and in times of harmony.
How to Turn Customers into Advocates
/in Customer Engagement /by Margot HowardExisting customers are more profitable and easier to sell to than entirely new prospects according to a study by Bain & Company. Increasing customer retention by as little as 5% increases profits by 25-95% while the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70% versus 5-20% for a new prospect. Your current customers buy more and buy quicker because they already know, like, and trust you and your product. And, if they become advocates, they will tell others and be a reference for you. Sounds great, doesn’t it! But how can a KAM turn customers into advocates?
Understand your customers
The better you Know your customers, the more strategic and effective you can be for them. Going beyond names and titles, you need to ask them about their personal and professional goals, motivations and expectations. Take time to understand the overall reporting structure in each key account, providing insights around what your day-to-day contacts are juggling in their job as well as the culture of their organization.
Dive deeper by leveraging Voice of Customer (VOC) email surveys combined with individual conversations consisting of customized questions across key account organizations. Then look at internal and external factors that may influence account success through a SWOT analysis.
While getting to know your key customers and when updating your customer knowledge, be sure to ask questions that reveal how you can become a great long-term partner to them. This is important since everybody has their own preferred way of working with business partners. By making a point to ask, you set yourself up to meet their expectations.
Some prefer to initiate contact when they need assistance, where others want partners to maintain consistent contact with them. It’s also important to learn their preferred method of communication as well as what key performance indicators against which they want to measure success. After you ask a question of your key contacts, take the time to listen carefully to their responses, ask follow-up questions, and confirm understanding before advancing to the next question. Then, it’s time to take appropriate action.
Deliver on your promises
Now that you have all this customer knowledge, it’s time to Act by creating an action plan. This is where you set goals, objectives, tactics, and tasks to deliver on the commitments you’ve made to your key accounts. Breaking down each goal into actionable steps enables you and your team to deliver value by actually doing what has been promised. Plus, it makes it easier to stay focused while tracking your progress. This is critical to the overall key account relationship.
Deliver value at every interaction
Make sure that you’re respectful of each contact’s time. Don’t schmooze. Instead, provide value in every interaction by showing them you understand their business and communicating clearly while offering insights, guidance, and new perspectives. This establishes you as a trusted partner delivering buteiness value and increasing customer retention. It also means your clients make you aware of changes and upcoming opportunities first. And they provide you with open, honest feedback quickly and continuously, enabling you to take timely steps to consistently improve customer experience.
Put your customer’s needs ahead of your own
As a Key Account Manager, you must always put your customer’s needs first. Doing so is a win-win where meeting or exceeding the goals and objectives of your key accounts means reaching your own company’s goals as well. Failing to remain focused on your customer’s goals ensures you fall short on both fronts.
Follow up on the value
It’s essential to establish specific goals and success metrics to Measure the success of your action plan by identifying which ones to use as you create each plan. Be sure to establish good baseline data at the beginning as you’re getting to know the customer. Doing so facilitates tracking your progress toward goal attainment. It makes it possible for you to quantify results when communicating internally. And allows you to clearly articulate to your clients the value you have provided. This can make all the difference when it comes to renewals by quantifying account success to stakeholders who think in terms of ROI.
In addition to clearly communicating valuable outcomes, be sure to ask customers if they received the results they were expecting and how you can improve. Always get feedback – this is essential to the future health of your accounts and enables you to keep your finger on their pulse at all times, addressing issues and making adjustments along the way.
Ask for references and advocacy
If they receive quantifiable value from you, ask your client to be a reference or to provide a testimonial. Then share these on social media. There’s no greater form of advertising than customer references, referrals, and testimonials. Make sure you take the time to ask for them once you’ve created this type of deep and trusting customer relationship.
Need help taking your Key Account Management program to this level? Kapta can help. Contact us to schedule a demo today.
Overcoming the 4 Major Risks of Account Based Engagement
/in Customer Engagement /by Alex RaymondAs customer demands and dynamics shift, smart B2B companies are exploring account based engagement (ABE): an integrated approach to marketing, sales, and service that “shifts the [marketing] paradigm from just generating and closing leads to orchestrating opportunities in the complex ecosystem of larger accounts.”
This should sound familiar to key account managers, who have been finding opportunities with larger accounts for years. In fact, we’ve written before about how the early stages of ABE are essentially KAM, with an added layer of integration with the marketing team.
Companies attempting their first ABE implementation run into four major risks:
So how do you avoid these risks? The answer for companies with a strong KAM function is: Lean on your KAM function. Take advantage of the profound customer knowledge base within your KAM team and on your KAM platform. When you do, you’ll not only sidestep ABE implementation risks, but you’ll also find you’re 90% of the way to a successful pilot program.
Think strategy, not tools.
A common hazard in ABE deployment is treating ABE as a set of tools to amplify your status-quo marketing strategy, when in fact, ABE is an entirely different marketing strategy. One where marketing, sales, service, and every other customer-facing function in the organization sit down together to answer the questions: Who are our customers? What are their pain points and goals? How can we best serve them? And how do these insights translate to marketing strategy, creative content, and multichannel delivery? Your KAM team will be critical here, as they are the primary source of customer knowledge in most organizations.
ABE begins with a deep understanding of customer needs and becomes an integrated approach to marketing that reverberates through every level and facet of the organization. When ABE is done well, day-to-day teams leverage wide open channels straight to the heart of customer organizations to deliver messaging and brand experiences consistent with what the marketing team posts on non personal channels. This cohesion creates a clear message and a strong brand — the building blocks of great marketing.
But again, ABE won’t work unless you treat it like a strategy exercise, vs a series of tools, which means doing what you’d do for any new strategy: Get the right people in the room. Conduct a landscape analysis. Think carefully. And then act boldly.
Don’t scale too quickly.
As an innovative strategy, ABE must be scaled thoughtfully. That means piloting the approach with a handful of key accounts, rather than diving right into an enterprise-level rollout.
Why? Because at the heart of ABE is a personalized approach to customer needs. And while it’s possible, over time, to build out the right people, processes, and technology to scale a personalized approach, it’s nearly impossible to move in the other direction, i.e personalizing a broad-strokes approach on the back end.
Your KAM team will be able to quickly identify strategic accounts, helping you prioritize early opportunities to integrate your marketing and delivery functions. And once you do, they’ll provide a wealth of knowledge to help guide your early efforts.
Don’t underestimate the organizational task at hand.
Anyone who’s ever tried to break down an organizational silo knows: It’s not easy. People are entrenched in the way they’ve always operated, and it’s hard to introduce new skills and concepts.
But in order for ABE to work, every department in the organization has to rally around a customer-centric strategy. Messaging and brand experience has to be consistent in every instance; what you promise on your website has to be true in the lived experience of working with your people.
More than that, every piece of content you deliver — whether it’s straight to clients or on your social media platform or a piece of thought leadership — has to reflect the overall strategy of your organization. You must always be asking how publications and deliverables reflect your value proposition, differentiators, and brand. This means coordinating efforts among cross-functional teams, and at every level of the organization.
Coordination at this magnitude requires people, process, and technology. The right tech platform can unite cross-functional, multilevel teams around a shared process and action plan. KAM platforms are a seamless fit for ABE, as they are already designed to keep customer insights and strategic goals highly visible, while in turn giving leaders the insights they need to keep their teams focused on the customer.
Get buy-in from sales and service teams.
Finally, a mistake companies make with ABE is that they ultimately let it be a marketing-led endeavor, with insufficient participation and buy-in from customer-facing teams. The right emphasis is the opposite: Let customer-facing teams tell you who the customer is and what they need. Then, let the marketing and creative strategies follow.
In avoiding this risk, we come full circle: ABE is a shift in marketing focus. Rather than shouting into the void and hoping new leads hear the message, ABE unearths opportunities with the customers you already have, and by proxy, the networks they maintain. It’s highly personalized and highly coordinated. It takes participation and buy-in from marketing, sales, service, and delivery teams. And it starts with key account management.
Conclusion
ABE is a relatively new term. But KAM is not. Key account management is the core of ABE. It’s the function that understands customers and tailors action plans to meet their needs. When marketing teams lean on their KAM teams to get the ball rolling on ABE, they’ll find they’re already 90% of the way there. And even better, KAM technology platforms are a perfect jumping off point for a company-wide, customer-centric approach to growth.
To learn more about how Kapta can help you implement an ABE approach, schedule your demo today.