Webinar: The Changing Role of Technology in Key Account Management
The Changing Role of Technology in Key Account Management – Webinar by DemandFarm Average number of buying interactions today in a B2B sales process have surged by 58.8% since the pandemic (Forrester 2021 Sales Enablement Year End Review). As Key Account Planning grows complex with account-centric interactions, technology that can continuously improve based on intelligent insights becomes a necessity. Decision-making will soon be based on Data, Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI), not on intuition and experience. Artificial Intelligence takes into account thousands of sales engagements within a CRM to provide contextual insights from your data. In the future, AI will most likely evolve to a stage where AI capabilities are embedded within Account Planning tools and can guide client engagements. This webinar will address some challenges and opportunities that arise out of this. Agenda The role of Artificial Intelligence, Data and Analytics in Key Account Planning Intelligent and Contextual Insights Evolving role of Key Account Management teams Augmented Intelligence vs Artificial Intelligence Speakers Milind Katti Co-Founder & COO DemandFarm Rick Bradberry Principal Analyst & Exec. Advisor B2B Sales Forrester Joshua Gregg Vice President, Strategic Accounts The Qt Company Michael McCarthy Senior Business & Technology Consultant, Sales Enablement Duke Energy Watch the webinar on-demand:
3 Ways John used Salesforce Partner DemandFarm to Grow his Key Accounts
If you are managing Strategic Accounts using Salesforce within any sales organization, this one is for you! Salesforce partner DemandFarm’s data-driven and scalable practices helps you increase revenue from your key accounts. Sales teams now get support in terms of insights, best practices, and timely nudges. This has helped them experience a boost of at least 20% in their productivity with focus on the key aspects of account growth. If you are highly reliant on sales data being in spreadsheets and presentations, unable to coordinate between global teams, and are missing trends in the B2B buying processes, then the Account Planner is your go-to fix. DemandFarm’s Account Planner can help you: Enhance digital account management practices Get an instant, real-time view of your progress Use contextual insights to rapidly grow your accounts Download this E-book to learn how DemandFarm can enable you with Actionable Sales Insights to transform your digital selling today!
Key Account Management Strategy: 4 Successful Account Management Strategies for Account Planning
A major portion of a company’s sales typically come from a small group of customers. Or, as the saying goes, around 80% of a company’s profit will come from 20% of its clients or accounts. We’ve all heard this management adage time and again. However, it continues to hold for many businesses around the world, no matter their size or the industry in which they operate. That’s why it’s critical to have proper strategies in place to ensure you, as a company, manage 20% of your clients with extra care than you normally would. How do you do that? By strategizing and picking the best account management practices for your firm. But despite the best account managers, Key Account Management strategies and approaches are failing. The main reasons behind a failed key account management strategy are a few critical mistakes that organizations tend to make. Those include a misguided selection of key accounts in the first place, overburdening key account managers, and wasting of resources, according to a study by Gartner published earlier this year. By resolving these issues, sales teams can greatly improve their key account growth, the study adds. source: Gartner What is Key Account Planning? Key Account Planning or Strategic Account Planning is a business process that entirely deals with the administration of these strategic key accounts. The best way to administer key accounts is to nurture them into long-term relationships. Key accounts are not just those that are bringing in the most money to your company right now, but can also offer the most promising prospects for growth. The Key Account Management process, in short, involves employing key account managers to maintain, develop and nurture those key accounts, and strategic customer relationships. It requires more in-depth and specialized handling than the role performed by the larger sales team. The popular saying is that in sales, you sell. But when it comes to Key Account Management, you help customers buy. What are the benefits of Account Planning? Key account planning offers a few important benefits for businesses, especially small and medium-sized ones, that make it a must-have. Account Planning is considered one of the most effective ways to both grow revenue and safeguard current sales. In other words, with Account Planning, in one stroke, an organization can protect its present while simultaneously working towards the future. By using Account Planning strategies, your business gains opportunities to cross-sell and upsell additional products or services to existing customers. Can you do this without Account Planning? Perhaps. But it would be a haphazard process. Account Planning ensures that your key account managers or sales reps know exactly which products or services to pitch, and which existing client to pitch it to. As we mentioned above, Account Planning also allows you to protect your existing customer base. It helps curb customer churn. When you use Account Planning strategies, your key account managers and sales rep are armed with the right tools. They can offer personalized solutions to customers who matter. In the process, what occurs is a mutually beneficial transaction between your organization and your key accounts. How do you use key account planning in your business? In the rest of this article, we give you a starting point by examining four best account planning strategies that will benefit your organization. Four Successful Key Account Management Strategies for Account Planning 1. Select the right key accounts How do you identify your key accounts? That should be the first question that comes to your mind, before you can even think about what Key Account Management strategies you need to implement. Key accounts or strategic customers aren’t only the ones that are bringing you the largest chunk of revenue. There are several other parameters that you need to consider before you can designate a client or customer as a key account. Here’s a look at some of those factors you need to consider to arrive at your own list of key accounts or strategic customers: Historic data: How much revenue has an account brought in over the years? How has its ratio of contribution to your company’s profits/revenue expanded (or shrunk) with time? Answering questions like these give you a more accurate and comprehensive description of key accounts in terms of revenue contribution. Growth potential: Now that you have an idea of how much revenue an account has historically contributed to, the next step is to map out its growth potential. How much more can your company earn from an account? Is there enough long-term potential? Do you believe that the organization is financially sound and will remain so for the foreseeable future? Value potential: Does the company offer you opportunities for growth that’s not necessarily based on numbers? For example, does the company have an extensive network or connections that you can tap into? Does it have access to resources you may need, or come with a stellar industry reputation that makes them a value add to your portfolio of customers? Match potential: Of course, it goes without saying that any account you are looking to classify as a key account must be a fit with your own company. For example, the solutions you currently offer (and plan to in future) must, obviously, be a match with what the other organization wants. Often, the culture of a strategic customer also ought to match your own, as it makes it easier to do business with them. As you implement a selection strategy to identify your strategic customers or key accounts, it’s very important to remember not to go overboard. It may be tempting to create a large portfolio of key accounts under the assumption that it boosts your company’s credentials. But the process is meant to be a narrow, selective one. You don’t want to end up with a long list of key accounts that may not be strategic for your company. When you do that, you run the risk of having to remove or demote some accounts, and that can cause unnecessary
Sales vs. Account Management: The Relationship between Sales and Account Management
Account Management vs. Sales: The Difference Between Key Account Management and Selling. Managing accounts and selling products seem different, but the functions of both practices share plenty of similarities. The relationship between Sales and Account Management is about getting the product in front of the customers, but while sales processes end when a product is purchased, Account management never stops. In simple words, sales teams bring customers in, and account management nurtures them and helps both entities grow. Both account management and sales have goals that are similar – building strong customer relationships, and increasing revenue of their organization. Both are important for the organization to be successful, but the skill sets required are very different. What is Sales? Sales, for B2B companies, involves a wide range of responsibilities on a day-to-day basis which are carried out to connect the solutions/products/services of the organization to relevant customers. Members of sales teams should know the solutions/products/services they’re selling inside out, so that they match & offer solutions that suit the unique needs of their clients. By discussing the benefits of different products, they connect with possible clients – and are involved in creating special deals for high-value clients. It is their job to keep up with sales reports and marketing data, writing contracts (and invoices once the sale is closed), and achieve sales targets set. What Do Sales Managers Do? Sales managers are the backbone of any sales team. Their primary responsibility is to drive revenue growth by meeting sales targets and closing deals. They lead a team of sales representatives, setting sales goals, developing sales strategies, and monitoring sales performance. Sales managers play a pivotal role in qualifying leads, creating sales presentations, and ensuring that the sales process runs smoothly from start to finish. What is Account Management? Account managers should also be proficient in sales activities, but few key differences can be observed between the roles. Account management roles are created to build a strategic relationships with clients after the sale is done, so that the satisfaction levels with the product or solution are high. Account management teams also act as advisers to their customers, and help them plan their long-term growth strategies. Apart from customer development and upselling to grow existing accounts, the account management team also keeps customer service success as their first priority. Case Study: TaskUs registered a 30% increase in up-selling & 20% increase in cross-selling What Do Account Managers Do? Account managers, on the other hand, focus on building and maintaining long-term relationships with clients. Their goal is to ensure customer satisfaction and foster client loyalty. They manage key accounts, providing personalized solutions and addressing client concerns. Account managers excel in relationship management, often acting as the main point of contact for clients and ensuring that their needs are met consistently. Where sales and account management work well together! In small and medium-sized businesses, organizations can have their sales teams handle account management too. This gives the members of sales teams a better look at their customer’s needs, and allows them to craft customized plans. As both sales and account management are critical roles, organizations should consider bifurcating them once they have reached a considerable size. Since account management also involves cross-selling and upselling whenever opportunities arise, sales teams can build their product presence quickly – but managing the account where no selling is involved might get a bit difficult in some cases. Even if sales team members are responsible for strategic account management, leaders of the vendor organization must ensure the team members understand the different skills required to execute both roles successfully. Sales Vs. Account Management: The Difference Between Key Account Management and Selling Understanding the difference between the elements of each discipline, can help the two teams work together, exchange information and share best practices, and grow faster. Some differences that can be highlighted between the functioning of sales and Account management teams are listed below. 1. Pre-sale and post-sale activities Sales teams are traditionally responsible for bringing in new customers, and they usually have only transactional relationships with the customer’s employees. The ownership of the customer transfers to account management teams, who develop a relationship with the customers, understand their issues and help them grow their business. Using key account management software can help both teams equally, as the data about the customer in the vendor organization’s enterprise memory can be used by both teams to great effect. While the sales processes can convert better with personalised solution scenarios, account management can start delighting the customer from day 1 with the data about the issues and how the solution is being used. Deep expertise in the solution’s capabilities allows both teams to seize the opportunity presented by the extra information at their disposal. 2. Hunting for customers and farming that adds value to them Allusions to hunting are aplenty in sales circles, where sales executives scout out the prospects and then close the deal (or ‘hunt’ them). The task of account management, in this scenario, is to ‘farm’ the value brought by the sales team and keep all involved parties satisfied. The data about customers can help them identify ways to cater to the customers’ needs and respond quickly. This is important for client satisfaction and to build good healthy long term client relationship. 3. Shorter and longer frequencies While both teams follow different cadences of work, at the end – they are tied to the client’s decisions. There’s no way to know how long closing a deal will take – ranging from weeks and months to even years (for large enterprise customers), sales teams keep their pitch on all the time. They don’t rest until the sale is closed and the account is handed to… the account management team. The account management team starts selling once the sales team stops – and doesn’t rest. In that way, both teams work on unpredictable cycles, and the amount of information they collect in either stage can hugely benefit the other team. Even if the sales process fails to close, for example, after 8 months – the sales team would have
The Future of Key Account Management Report – A Global CSO study by DemandFarm
Key Account Management has always been a critical component of every B2B organization, given that in most cases Key Accounts contribute upwards of 60% of their overall revenues. As businesses become more global and complex, the role of strategic account management will evolve further. As companies strive to increase market share and grow their customer base, making a “shift” towards Digital KAM will help them achieve these goals. DemandFarm, with insights from the 2022 CSO Survey conducted across USA, Europe and Asia-Pacific regions gathered 1000+ responses from sales leaders covering the trends, skills, tools, and strategies to understand the future of KAM and its changing landscape. Download the Research Report to uncover the future of KAM and its changing landscape.
Key Account Management: Best Customer Segmentation Strategies for Customer Success Teams
Customer Segmentation for Key Accounts Engaging with customers and striving for positive outcomes in those interactions play a vital role in helping a business succeed. From enterprises to SMBs in the B2B sphere, almost every organization is focusing on keeping up with the needs of their customers. With the widespread permeation of digital media, personalized communications and solutions have become commonplace. These granular, bespoke communications can be effective if they are delivered to the audience they’re intended to. Customer segmentation helps in identifying the shared characteristics so that these group of customers can receive our solutions & attention more effectively. In SaaS companies, customer segmentation for key accounts is usually done based on the Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) value of the customer organizations. Since ARR segments clients based on the revenue contributed, segmenting becomes easier – but it can be counterproductive when vendors prioritize accounts with high ARRs. The risk-avoidant nature of ARRs means customer success & account management teams have to segment their customers strategically and understand the similarities and differences between the needs of their clients. Learn More: The Role of Key Account Management in Customer Success Management The need for key account segmentation Every customer is different – While some might expect customer success teams to help them understand the issue in detail, others might want minimal communication outside the scheduled interactions. Teams can put these two customers in separate segments, and create an accurate assessment of their needs. This helps teams get a clear understanding of the issues in front of their customers and deploy resources in an effective way. Unlike the old methods where large clients were clubbed together, developments in the area have resulted in methodologies that include companies from various industries, of different sizes and revenue, together. These methods ensure all customers across different segments get the same importance, but with different approaches that are suited to their needs. Read More: What is Customer Centricity and Why it isn’t the destination? Types of Key Account Segmentation There is no dearth of customer success segmentation models, and teams can choose the one that suits their needs most. While traditional methods have lost their allure, certain new frameworks have shown value in customer segmentation. Based on the model that is chosen, teams have to consider the variables specific to the industry or business. The nature of the products and services being proposed also play a part in deciding the segmentation model to be used. Trait-Based Segmentation It relies on demographic information, like the industry, company size, latest developments in the sphere etc. This segmentation technique is easily identifiable, but the underlying assumption that shared traits between industries or companies also share desired outcomes can lead to misleading assumptions. RFM-Based Segmentation It stands for recency, frequency, and monetary aspects of the customer organization. Recency refers to the time elapsed since the last customer interaction, Frequency is about the number of times customers contact the vendor in a specified period of time, and Monetary aspects refer to the total spending of the customer with the vendor. These details help customer success teams to gauge the responsiveness of the customer and plan their proposal accordingly. Value-Based Segmentation Value-Based Segmentation groups customers according to the economic value they provide to the vendor. It focuses on the ARR potential of customer organizations, and groups them by subscription levels, production rates, existing ARRs, and similar metrics. Customer success & Key Account Management teams can locate upsell and cross-sell opportunities with this method, and serve existing customers better. It focuses attention on building relationships with customers, and improves the revenue potential over time. Needs-Based Segmentation It classifies customers based on specific needs. Customer success teams group customers who use products for similar objectives, and achieve targeted service delivery for every one of them. Types of key account segmentation based on revenue The process of segmentation differs from one methodology to another, but the steps involved largely remain the same. Segmentation on the basis of Revenue (MRR or ARR), one of the most prevalent methods, is usually done under the following labels: Revenue Segmentation Revenue Segmentation pays extra attention to customers who contribute more to the bottom line, because high-value customers usually have complex needs. The customer success teams should carefully select meaningful segment boundaries, where customers below and above revenue boundaries have varied needs – otherwise the difference in treatment can be jarring to the customers. Also, the matter of customers who downgrade their subscription or opt for a lower tier contract needs to be handled carefully, as dropping low in the order of importance can cause resentment when not handled diplomatically. Revenue Potential Revenue Potential of a customer might increase multiple times over the future, even if it is relatively low today. Or in case of enterprise clients, the partnership may start with a really small project, but if the team understands the potential of serving other departments/functions and tailor their product accordingly, there could be excellent upsell opportunities. By providing high value of service even at low MRR, the chances of getting bigger projects is increased. Reference Accounts Reference Accounts are customers who may not have a large relationship value, but have great contacts in the business to whom they can refer vendors to. If they are really happy with the limited partnership scope, then too they can serve as reference points for other prospects that customer success teams approach on their own. Lifecycle Stage Lifecycle Stage of customer technology adoption is very important for SaaS sales teams. Customers in the initial stages appreciate vendors taking the time to help them understand the intricacies of the field, and they need more upfront time investment than those who are in advanced stages of technology adoption. Industry Industry level segmentation makes sense if the vendor product is used by multiple industries in different ways (check out systems, for example – which can be used by PoS systems as well as warehouses). Teams can then focus on industry-specific messages while approaching customers.
9 Steps to Build a Successful Key Account Management Process
This ebook contains 9 steps to go over key account planning, setting up, implementing and reviewing a key account management process. They include analysis to make a profit, understanding your customer, assessing your relationship health, drawing up a key account plan blueprint and getting into action with a plan. Find out more about resource planning for your key accounts, improving communication with internal and external stakeholders. Monitor, control and review the Key Account Management process to determine its success.
Key Account Management Scorecard Template to Identify Key Accounts
DemandFarm proposes a 7-factor framework for Key Account Management teams to assess the maturity level of their key account management strategy. Provide a weighted score for yourself & assess areas for improvement. Get to know where you are doing well and where you need to improve as an organization. accounts.
Key account management skills for the new paradigm
Account planning has evolved from the wine and dine times to providing strategic solutions – and shows no signs of stopping. The tribal knowledge present in the teams can become enterprise memory with digital KAM and narrate a story of the client’s needs to the Key Account Management team – allowing them find innovative ways of meeting them. This means key account managers can focus on proactively understanding and trying to solve client’s problem, instead of trying to keep the records straight. The changes to working conditions all over the world provide another reason to relook at skills required to manage key accounts – the old ways are not relevant anymore. The changes to the way we work have been so drastic that in a couple of years, organizations that don’t have any sort of key account management practice that relies on structured data – will not be able to succeed. With structured information about clients and insights derived from AI and ML tools, Account Managers can provide the necessary human touch efficiently. The key customer representatives want to succeed in their positions – and are looking for strategic partners who can empathize and help them achieve business goals. By treating key accounts as strategic partners, organizations can see the real value of the business relationship – where the skills of account managers are enhanced by the tools at their disposal.
The secret to winning a key account for long-term
Key account retention, when seen from the eyes of vendor partners, is not just about proving the solution that was asked, but to understand the client’s business and help them grow. But with the fragmented state of data on customers, it is difficult to understand what drives the decision making on the customer’s side. With the right strategy and the right tools, however, key account managers can ensure they have relevant data which allows them to work smart. With proper data about the client in place, Account Managers can demonstrate value to the key account by knowing their business and industry, helping them set goals, develop corresponding strategies and create a concrete, actionable plan. With properly organised data, even a new member of the accounts team can start on an even keel with the information available. With proper data, reaching out to key accounts regularly becomes a meaningful activity, which works towards enhancing the relationship. At the end of the day, technology enables us to do what we already do better. People buy from people they trust, and with sophisticated key account management tools – the task of establishing trust can be simplified. Also, with AI and ML being used increasingly in Key Account Management solutions, we are seeing the software provide helpful suggestions, touch points, key focus areas and more. Watch the complete DemandFarm Fireside Chat to learn how your organization can have a long and fruitful relationship its key customers here