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
Investing in Key Account Management PROCESS Before TOOLS
At Kapta, we’re all about technology and we’re proud of the…
October 14, 2019/by Alex RaymondQ4 Planning for Key Account Managers
Where did the year go? It seems like just a few weeks ago we…
October 7, 2019/by Alex RaymondTop Tools for Key Account Managers
Every profession requires the right tools. Without them, we’d…
September 30, 2019/by Lesley PoladskyHow to Spot a Great Key Account Manager
In any field, when we’re hiring a new person to fill a role,…
September 23, 2019/by Alex RaymondHow Key Account Managers Can Use LinkedIn to Maximum Effect
Social media has rapidly changed society over the last decade…
September 16, 2019/by Alex RaymondWhat’s Your Definition of Key Account Management?
For some things in life, there is a clear-cut, right or wrong…
September 9, 2019/by Lesley PoladskyGet Ready for KAMCon 2019!
It’s that time of year again. Summer is wrapping up and we’re…
September 2, 2019/by Alex Raymond6 Steps to Getting the Most out of Kapta
When you invest in a new software tool, you want to know for…
August 26, 2019/by Alex RaymondDelegation Principles Every Key Account Manager Needs to Understand to the Fullest
How good are you at delegating? Do you just divide parts of a…
August 19, 2019/by Lesley PoladskyChange Management Success Factors – It’s Not A One And Done Process
Change is inevitable for any organization, and although some…
August 12, 2019/by Lesley PoladskyHow to Protect Your Business When Things Get Tough
A customer-centered strategy can help vendors thrive in a recession
After…
August 5, 2019/by Alex RaymondAfter…
When Implementing KAM Tools, Budgeting Time Is Equally As Important As Money
It doesn't matter what line of work you're in; time can be costly.…
July 29, 2019/by Lesley PoladskyCategories
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Why Ad Agencies are Investing in Key Account Management
/in Key Account Management /by Kelly SharpKey Account Management is the art of engaging with high-value customers to promote a long-term, strategic partnership that results in organic growth. Because high-value customers appear across multiple industries, KAM is be useful for many different types of organizations.
For some of our customers, high-value customers are a segment within a broader customer base. However, for some companies using Kapta, every account is high value. And we don’t mean that as a platitude—we mean these companies have a small roster of clients, all of whom are worth half a million dollars in revenue or more, annually.
For these organizations, all Account Management is Key Account Management, and KAM is not an afterthought or an offshoot of sales. Rather, it’s an operational pillar of the organization.
We recently posted a use-case analysis of KAM at marketing agencies, examining how and why they use Kapta to support them in their unique KAM environment. To review, marketing agencies need Kapta because they are:
There is quite a bit of overlap between marketing and advertising agencies, and both kinds of agencies strive to be strategic partners to their clients. Ad agencies perhaps place more emphasis on the creative product itself, but the best agencies know, at the end of the day, they’re not creative agencies—they’re client service agencies.
In order to serve clients effectively, ad agencies need a high-functioning client services team, whose focus is the client relationship. And that team needs purpose-built tools built around some version of Our KAM Process:
Let’s look at a couple of nuances that shape the KAM environment at full-service ad agencies, and how Kapta can help support those agencies in their account management efforts.
Agency of Record
Many RFPs sent out to full-service ad agencies are for an Agency of Record (AoR), meaning the agency will handle all promotional business for the product. For example, if a pharmaceutical company is launching a new drug, they will seek pitches from pharma ad agencies to be AoR for that drug. Once selected, the AoR will handle every single physician-facing communication related to the launch of that drug, whether it’s KOL communication, conventions, branding, launch creative concept, website, emails, and more. The pharma company won’t divide that work among different specialist vendors; ie, they won’t hire a separate, smaller agency who specialize in web content to design the website. They’ll funnel all promotional work through their AoR. Often, this means the AoR will manage subcontractors in addition to taking on a great deal of work in-house.
To be an AoR requires a depth of relationship well beyond that of a typical vendor. Account managers at ad agencies need to know their clients better than they know themselves. Often, an account manager will have a desk at the client’s office and an email address at the client’s domain. They’ll have password access and eat in the client’s cafeteria. Despite what their paycheck says, they are so embedded in their client’s day-to-day that they could easily pass for an employee of their client.
And that speaks to an important aspect of key account management at an ad agency: You are so focused on client service that a casual observer might think you worked for them, and not for your agency.
Of course, account managers do work for their agency, and are accountable to their agency, and we’ll get into that more later. But it’s food for thought for organizations that don’t have as strong a customer-first culture, or as developed a KAM function. Imagine what it would be like to be so immersed in your client’s business that a casual observer might think you worked for them.
Getting and staying so immersed requires dedicated teams and tools. Many account managers at ad agencies handle only one account, and they may even be part of a team of account managers who work on one piece of business. That team needs purpose-built tools to help unearth and manage everything their client needs/wants/is trying to accomplish.
Again, take the example of a pharmaceutical launch: The pharma company is about to spend millions of dollars with their ad agency building a cohesive, compelling brand; communicating to decision-makers and influencers all over the country or world; complying with the many regulations surrounding pharma advertising; and driving adoption and success for their drug. That’s a tall order, and agencies need a systematic way to keep track of all those goals, as well as a clear way to keep multiple teams on strategy as they tackle multiple deliverables across multiple audiences. Rather than storing key information as a series of Powerpoint decks and Excel spreadsheets on the server, plus a chain of emails on Outlook, plus whatever’s happening on Slack and Assembla, Kapta keeps the big picture context front and center, supporting account managers as they ensure the strategic quality of work going out the door while also keeping new work coming in the door.
Sales Follows KAM (not the other way around)
In an organization where Sales is King, key account management tends to follow sales. In other words, the sales team will use their CRM to generate new leads, and as some of those leads start to float to the top as priorities, the KAM team takes over.
Now, consider an ad agency. First of all, there’s no CRM. And there’s no “sales” team, even if there is a group dedicated to new business. Because in fact, every single “sale” at an ad agency is a function of key account management. New RFPs often come in either because (a) a leader on the client services team once worked with someone who is now leader at their company, and the RFP is really just a long extension of previous account management; or (b) the agency is performing so well for their other clients that they earn a reputation for creativity and effectiveness. In either case, even being invited to pitch for new business is because of a personal relationship or demonstrated success; CRM never enters into it.
Account managers also drive organic growth by renewing and upselling existing clients. As the agency partnership grows, the client sends more and more business their way—maybe they get an opportunity to work on global launches as well as US business. Or in the pharma example, they get a chance to work on consumer-facing promotional materials in addition to physician-facing. As the team succeeds in their efforts on a client’s behalf, they open the door for more and more work—and they keep the account profitable along the way.
Account Management is a Line Item
In an ad agency model, account management isn’t overhead. It’s a line item in its own right. Clients are so convinced of the value of the account management team that they pay for them separately, and not just as a set of billable hours under a specific deliverable.
In order to essentially convince a client to pay your salary, you have to work even harder to demonstrate value—and that’s where a purpose-built tool that includes key metrics is critical. Account managers should be able to show real data that proves they’ve been effective; they also need clients who are deeply satisfied with the level of service and work they get from their agency. Kapta helps account managers track both specific KPIs and overall account health, including both leading and lagging indicators of success.
Account-Ability
At the end of the day, account managers at an ad agency are in a tough spot: They are deeply accountable to their clients, and their success in building client relationships will shape their career for years to come. They are also accountable to their agencies, ensuring work comes in the door—and deliverables go out the door with profit margins in tact. And they are accountable to the entire cross-functional team that helps deliver that work. Account managers can be successful even if creative directors don’t like them, but creative directors can certainly make their lives miserable if they want to.
With so many people to answer to, it’s critical that account managers have a tool designed to support them, specifically, in their unique role. A tool that helps them keep up with their client communications, their internal team’s progress, and the results they’ve driven as an agency.
Conclusion
Because high-value clients exist in every industry, we at Kapa work with customers from many different industries. Sometimes, we offer support and training to companies who are just learning about key account management—we can help those organizations segment their customer base, establish a KAM process, and set themselves up for growth.
However, with ad agencies, our role is different. Ad agencies know full well the value of key account management, and it shows: Their KAM function is incredibly well-developed and well-respected within agency culture. For ad agencies and other service-based firms, we spend less time educating around KAM and more time supporting established teams in their ongoing efforts to engage clients more fully, deepen and strengthen the relationships, and develop a reputation for stellar client service.
To see how Kapta supports client service leads at marketing agencies and other service-based firms, schedule a personal demo today.
Performance Reviews for Key Account Managers
/in Key Account Management /by Lesley PoladskyWhen it’s time to do a performance review for your key account managers, there are lots of factors to consider. After all, key account management isn’t sales, so it’s not enough to look at quotas. KAM reviews should probe beyond the numbers, understanding the processes and relationships behind them. And KAM reviews should look beyond the short term; Key Account Managers are stewards of the customer relationship, and their job is to facilitate long-term, strategic partnerships that bring stability and growth to your organization over time.
Evaluating their effectiveness takes a broad approach, rooted in a shared vision for success; namely: Deep customer engagement and strong account health. And while there certainly are good metrics to help guide your conversation, your review should be ultimately both quantitative and qualitative. Consider evaluating:
Customer Results
Key Account Management is about putting customers first. In order for your KAMs to do so consistently, they need to be supported by an internal culture, across your entire organization, that also prioritizes customers.
Practically speaking, this manifests a couple of ways in a performance review: The first is getting direct customer feedback as part of a comprehensive evaluation. We’ll talk about that more later. The second is looking just as much at customer KPIs as you do at internal metrics of success.
Start by looking at how well your team—led by the key account manager whose performance you’re reviewing—is helping customers achieve their stated objectives. A tool like Kapta gives you a single dashboard from which to access customer goals and objectives, as well as KPIs.
If your KAM and their team have recently helped the client increase their revenue or market penetration, or otherwise achieve their stated goals, that’s a huge plus for your KAM—even if the customer’s achievements haven’t yet translated to more internal revenue. Be patient, and remember: key account management is a long game. Putting customers first pays off—but sometimes it pays off a month, a quarter, or a year down the road. And sometimes it pays off just as much in reputation and referrals throughout your industry as it does in increased revenue with one customer.
Let’s look at the reverse scenario. Say the KAM and their team are upselling clients left and right, but upon closer inspection, they are not following through by helping clients move the needle on their stated objectives. This is definitely a red flag. Over time, if clients don’t see value from the partnership, they’ll move on, and your short-term gains will convert to long-term losses. Consider talking more about this in a review—what’s not working, and why not? How might your KAM course-correct to keep the client engaged for the long term?
Remember: Key Account Management puts customers first. That means a performance review of KAMs has to do the same. Keep that in mind as you proceed.
Leading Indicators
Revenue and retention are certainly important metrics for evaluating KAM performance—but they’re lagging indicators, and therefore not only thing you should consider in your review. Retention and revenue are also affected by many factors outside your KAM’s control.
The balance here is not to avoid all lagging indicators, but simply to add leading indicators to your evaluation. These often take the form of process checks—how well are your KAMs following your internal KAM Process?
Kapta tracks the upstream activities we know key account managers need to do in order to build strong relationships; namely: Knowing what the customer is trying to achieve; Acting to make it happen; and Measuring client results. One quick glance at Kapta can tell you how often and how meaningfully your KAM is making client contact; how strategically and methodically they’re building action plans; how closely they’re tracking on time and budget; and how well they’ve performed for your customer.
If your KAM is consistently and effectively doing these things, they are likely doing their job well, even if it hasn’t been their biggest quarter—or year—in terms of revenue. If the relationship is strong and the lines of communication are open, the potential for growth is there—especially the growth potential your KAM can control. Use your performance review to look at the process behind the numbers just as much as you look at the numbers themselves.
And be honest with yourself: Is there a clear process for your KAMs to follow? If you find yourself struggling to define what you’re measuring against, in terms of approach, that might be an indicator your organization as a whole needs to assess and clarify its own KAM process. The success of your key account managers is ultimately a big part of the success of your company, so set them up for success by dedicating resources to Key Account Management. This includes taking the time to establish a clear process as well as investing in purpose-built tools to support them along the way.
While we strongly encourage looking beyond quarterly or even annual revenue, it’s of course reasonable to look at those numbers as part of a broader review. After all, strong key account management is designed to support organic growth. If your account manager is consistently renewing and upselling contracts, that’s a great sign. If, over time, their accounts are consistently underperforming, that’s a red flag.
While you’re looking revenue, it’s also important to look at margins, as these can help indicate how effectively your KAMs are running any given account. Project managers and the team as a whole certainly play a role here, but account managers are the ones working directly with the client. If they are constantly absorbing costs or reducing rates, look at the reason. Is it because clients aren’t satisfied?
It doesn’t do much good to continually renew or upsell a client, only to go over budget on every deliverable and end up swallowing costs. Or to constantly offer discounts just to keep customers hanging on. This is where your KAM’s deeper client communication skills come into play—if they’re just pandering, you’re not profiting, and that demands intervention.
Relationships
When it comes to customer satisfaction, there’s a great resource out there: The customer.
As the supervisor of a key account manager, you are a leader within the KAM function at your organization; on some level, you are just as invested in and responsible for customer engagement as the people who report to you. Ask yourself: When was the last time you made a personal connection with your KAM’s customers? If it’s been a while, that’s understandable: It’s your team’s job to run the day-to-day. But think of a performance review as an excellent opportunity to sit down with your KAM’s customers and solicit direct feedback. How well is your team meeting their needs? How satisfied are they with the level of service they get from your company? How much value do they get from working with their key account manager?
In many ways, your key account managers report to your customers as much as they report to you. Sitting down with those customers to get direct feedback on KAM performance offers valuable insight you might not have a chance to see day-to-day; it also gives you a chance to strengthen the relationship by demonstrating how much you, as part of your company’s leadership team, value that client and their business. And finally, it models the exact behavior you want to see from your KAMs: Direct client contact, with plenty of opportunity for feedback and course-correction.
Conclusion
There’s a common theme running through this post, and that’s this: To effectively evaluate a key account manager, you have to look comprehensively at their performance, taking into consideration more than the numbers on a piece of paper. Getting sidetracked by numbers—especially short-term quotas—can lead you astray in either direction. At the end of the day, you’re evaluating relationship strength, client satisfaction, and customer engagement—and none of these things can be measured by numbers alone.
Kapta can be an excellent tool for managers, helping to frame and guide a productive performance review. Kapta gives you great insight into how well your key account managers are helping customers achieve their goals; how often KAMs are communicating with customers; and how healthy the overall account is, independent of short-term losses or gains. Kapta also provides Our KAM Process, which can help establish and define the approach you want your KAMs to take with customers, so you have a framework for performance—and performance reviews.
To see how Kapta supports managers in their performance reviews, schedule a personal demo today.
Make Your Account Reviews Count: Your guide to leading account reviews that drive client satisfaction and open the door to organic growth
/in Account Management, Key Account Management /by Alex RaymondDon’t just check the box. Move the needle.
Account reviews are an incredible opportunity. They open the door to feedback, insights, and opportunities. They’re a chance for face-time between leadership and cross-functional teams from both organizations. They strengthen relationships, build customer engagement, and create opportunities for organic growth through customer improvement.
But account reviews only work if they’re done right.
Below is our guide to leading engaging and productive account reviews. We’ve included big picture best practices as well as several practical tips. To learn more about how Kapta can support you in making account reviews count, schedule your personal demo.
Schedule Regular Check-Ups
We say it all the time: Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) are a thing of the past. Not because business reviews aren’t critical, but because quarterly isn’t enough.
So how frequently should you schedule account reviews? As always, it depends. If you’re already in constant contact with your client, through regular status meetings or deliverables reviews, you can afford to schedule less frequent formal reviews. If you are not already talking to your client all the time, you need to schedule account reviews at least every 2-4 weeks.
However often you have them, make sure your account reviews are separate from day-to-day meetings, so you can focus on the big picture, invite big players, and check in on the relationship as a whole, rather than getting lost in the weeds of any given deliverable.
Prepare to Add Value
We conducted a survey of over 100 CIOs and CMOs, and found that most account reviews fell flat for one simple reason: The team wasn’t prepared. Give yourself time leading up to the meeting to put together a deck. Assign an owner, and then ask:
What it all comes down to is this: You can’t put together your next account review the day before your next account review. You need time to get input from the team, turn data into meaningful insights, and build a review that adds value and sparks good conversation.
Stay Client-Focused
Remember: It’s not about you. Account reviews are a great opportunity to demonstrate value and show what you’ve accomplished, but you have to make sure you relate back to your customer’s stated goals. Structure the meat of your presentation around active client objectives, including:
We’ll talk more about the client input piece below—for now, just make sure you’re building in plenty of time for a 2-way conversation, rather than a 1-sided presentation. And ask yourself with every slide or bullet point: Is this meaningful/interesting to my customer? Or just to me? If the answer is the latter, take it out.
Because you’re structuring the bulk of your account review around your client’s stated goals, any pipeline reviews need to happen separately. A good account review may reveal new client goals (and new opportunities for business), but it’s not an overt sales meeting. It’s a reckoning against the goals your customer has already set, and the commitments you’ve already made. You can come back to new opportunities later.
Create a 2-Way Conversation
Account reviews are a great opportunity to hear from your clients first hand. They’re a face-to-face Voice of Customer exercise—but only if you talk with your customers, not at them.
Ask about their satisfaction. Are they happy with the work? Are they happy with the team? Ask if there’s anything they’d like to modify or improve. Ask about their goals. Have they changed or evolved since the last time you spoke? Are they facing new market trends or competitive threats? The sooner you know, the more proactive you can be about solving their problems—before they reach out to another vendor, or another vendor reaches out to them.
In order to get meaningful Voice of Customer insights, you need to make sure the right customers are in the room. Here are a few practical tips:
Invite leadership from both sides: Sending leadership from your organization signals to your client that their business matters. It’s also an excellent chance for managers to observe their team in action, and to gauge the health of the relationship. Not only can leadership take action if there are red flags, but they can also use their observations to drive better internal performance reviews for the team.
End with an Action Plan
It’s been a great meeting. You presented insightful, relevant updates. Your clients were engaged participants. You revealed new opportunities and asked interesting questions. So now what?
Make sure to leave meetings with an action plan in place. Include deliverables, commitment, and timing. Schedule the next review, and identify any particular attendees who should be there.
Here’s another practical tip: Block your calendar for an additional 1-2 hours following the meeting to give yourself time for immediate action items, such as:
Just as we encourage you to build in time leading up to the review, we encourage you to build in time following the review. Setting aside time to prepare and follow up, respectively, means you take account reviews seriously—and that’s the first step towards making them work for you.
Drive Customer Improvement
Good account reviews should require internal follow up. Maybe you gained some valuable insight on current deliverables, and you want to share with the broader team to inform their ongoing work. Or maybe you heard some interesting nuggets that could turn into opportunities for organic growth. Pull some good minds together and start brainstorming how you might help your customers reach goals.
Customer improvement is the practice of knowing your customers—and their business—almost better than they know themselves, so you can offer ideas and insights they wouldn’t have thought of on their own. That’s the kind of value-added relationship that grows over time, but it takes time to make it happen. Don’t just run your account review and forget everything you heard until the next one—use internal resources to translate client comments into meaningful feedback for the team, and meaningful growth potential for your customers.
Conclusion
We’ve covered lots of best practices for conducting excellent account reviews, and we’ve included practical tips throughout to help you operationalize your approach. Now—what kinds of tools do you have to help along the way?
Kapta’s real-time tracking and reporting tools make it easy to access on-the-spot data for any given account. Pull metrics, show progress, and visually demonstrate value with a few clicks.
Kapta’s collaboration hub gives you a central repository for the output of client reviews, whether it’s a change in approach, an update to timing, or an update to strategy.
And Kapta’s VOC tools help capture client feedback and client goals in a way that prompts follow up and further discussion, reinforcing the behaviors that transform customer relationships.
To learn more about how Kapta can help you prepare for and make the most of account reviews, schedule a demo today.