Today, more than ever, businesses need to be on the lookout for the signs of churn risk. This is especially true when it comes to key accounts since they represent a significant amount of your recurring revenue that you need to protect.
As an executive in a customer-obsessed B2B company, you are likely to know if a top-tier account is at-risk of churn. So, when you serendipitously, or intentionally, encounter the account manager who owns the account, you’ll want to gain additional context and insights into the situation. But what should you ask to get the best picture of the situation to potentially influence the outcome or prepare for the worst?
We’ve put some thought into this so you’re ready when the situation arises. Read on to learn which questions to ask your account managers and what information you can anticipate in return. This will arm you with questions and enable you to ask additional probing questions to unearth the desired information about at-risk accounts when the time comes.
What is the State of Our Relationship with the Customer?
This question is broad enough that it may generate a response that provides you with all the information you are seeking. But the main elements this first question should reveal are engagement levels, value realization, collaboration, and referrals. Let’s take a closer look at those.
- Engagement: If the customer is responsive and communicating via email and phone calls, and receptive to continuing to meet routinely, this is a positive sign.
- Value realization: Is the customer seeing the desired outcomes and ROI they were seeking when they selected your solution? If they aren’t, this could spell trouble for the relationship in the long term.
- Collaboration: It’s essential that the customer is still working with the account manager to collaboratively co-create their account plans and generate desired outcomes. Otherwise, it might be a sign that the customer already has one foot out the door or is considering other solutions.
- Referrals: If this VIP client has been a top advocate and referral source and has stopped or reduced their support of your brand, it may be time to investigate. You may want to broach the subject with the client’s executive during the next customer advisory board meeting to determine the cause of their reduced enthusiasm.
What Type of Feedback Has the Customer Been Giving Us Recently?
Feedback from the customer is essential to gauge their experience and adjust to better serve them. Of course, you’d like to hear that VIP clients have positive things to say, but a lack of negative feedback, or worse yet, no feedback at all, may be a sign of trouble. In fact, silent customers are worse than those whose complaints have increased, because you don’t know where the problems lie. And silent customers may have already engaged with a competitor or decided to defect without a word.
Has the Customer’s Product or Service Usage Changed Recently?
Here you want to know about the client’s product adoption, issues, and overall growth.
Has the client fully adopted your product or service or are they on track to do so?
How about issues? Is your product or service meeting the customer’s expectations or are they experiencing difficulties utilizing it the way they envisioned?
Is the account continuing to grow or is it showing signs of slowing or negative growth? And are they receptive to upsell and cross-sell discussions or resistant to them?
Any negatives here may possibly be signs of trouble and are worth investigating and addressing accordingly.
Have There Been Any Changes in the Customer’s Industry or Business that Could Affect Our Partnership?
There are so many factors that are out of your control that may put key accounts at risk including:
- A champion’s departure for another company
- Mergers and acquisitions
- Layoffs
- Political issues
- Changes in the customer’s industry or the marketplace
- Changes to competitors: yours or your client’s
- Regulatory changes
- Changes in client priorities
- Client financial issues
You may or may not be able to alter the situation or address the issue, but it’s worth investigating to see if there is any way to overcome the challenge and retain the account.
What are We Doing to Mitigate These Risks?
Once you understand the situation, you’ll want to know what is being done to overcome the challenge and minimize the potential risks. Get an overview of the steps being taken to shore up the account and how things are progressing.
How Likely Is This Customer to Continue Doing Business With Us?
Ultimately, you want to hear what the odds are of retaining the key account and preventing them from churning.
Assess At-Risk Key Accounts
As you recognize which top-tier accounts are at-risk for churn, get a clearer picture of the situation and what steps are being taken to right the ship. Then you can determine if, and how, you can help and the odds of preventing the customer from discontinuing their relationship with your organization.
Whatever the answer, knowing this information enables you and your organization to mitigate these risks and be aware of pending churn when you can’t prevent it.
Looking for a tool to facilitate the early identification of at-risk accounts? Schedule a chat with a team member to see how Kapta can help.
