Tag: Templates

Key Account Management Plan Template

Key Account Management Plan As the saying goes, ‘failing to plan is planning to fail’. This could not be more true when it comes to Key Account Management. Creating and maintaining a Key Account Management plan can be critical to the success of your business. After all, your key accounts are the customers that bring the most revenue and profit. So it only makes sense to invest the time and resources necessary to keep them happy. But what goes into a Key Account Management plan? A Key Account Management plan will help you map out your approach, stay organized, and on track as you work to grow and nurture your relationships with your key accounts. If you are not sure where to start, don’t worry. We’ve got you covered with this Key Account Management plan template. We provide a systematic approach to analyze your customers, identify key areas, and adopt best practices of Key Account Management planning. 6 Steps of Key Account Management plan Broadly, a Key Account Management plan can be divided into 6 categories or steps: account analysis, self-analysis, business development, action plan, monitoring, and reviewing the plan. Each of these sections will provide you with an opportunity to capture information that you need to improve your business and ensure customer satisfaction. Step 1: Account analysis When creating a Key Account Management plan, start by analyzing your current accounts. This will give you a better idea of how to focus your marketing efforts. Also, it will help you identify the pockets of potential growth. For example, do you have any new customers on whom you are not able to collect data? Are there existing customers who are not satisfied with their experience? These and other questions can help you identify areas where you need to improve. Get to know their business better – what are their goals, what are their challenges, what are their priorities? Here’s a list of questions to guide you through some research: What is their company culture like? How do they view themselves? What is their budget like? How many employees have they hired? For each employee, what is their role description? What are their key performance indicators? What are the challenges the key account is facing? Best practice: You may find it helpful to create a diagram or table that illustrates the relationships between these various parts of your key account. Invest in an automated solution that can improve the integrity of your data while enhancing the research process.   Step 2: Self-analysis What analytics can help you to understand is what type of information you need to focus on in order to improve your business. This includes customer requirements, competitive analysis, product development, and technical excellence. Depending on the situation, one or a combination of these elements will need to be emphasized. Current customers can be analyzed using a number of tools. You can use analytics and automation to get a handle on how your customers interact with your business. This will help you identify customer pain points that you can address with changes to your product or service. You can also analyze performance data to identify how your products perform. This can include identifying customer complaints, feedback, and satisfaction issues. Lastly, you can analyze sales projections to determine how much revenue you will be making in the coming year. These projections are based on estimated sales growth, which uses data from your previous experiences with similar products and services. All this information will help you create a list of initiatives that you need to address in your key account management plan. Define your objectives by answering questions like: What is your key account trying to achieve? What’s the bigger picture? Differentiate yourself by linking your capabilities to their key objectives. Best practice: Clearly define your objectives and allocate specific business units to a generic team rather than a specific account manager – it will foster a creative, collaborative culture. Step 3: Business development In order to sustain growth, businesses must constantly look for ways to improve their offering. This can include new products, processes, and services. However, innovation is not just for startups. Even large companies must continually look for ways to improve performance. For example, how can a company increase sales by 10% without increasing prices? How can they do this by improving their service? Or by adding new products that are both cost-effective and attractive to customers? Analyze the current state of the account and the factors that affect it. Consider this Market position (leadership, growth potential, share of market, price sensitivity) Business unit performance (income, cost, margin, growth potential) Current contracts (length, renewal likelihood, value, special terms and conditions) Customer service/relationship quality ratings (impact on new business opportunities) Competitors’ status (what are they doing?) Potential business opportunity value (current and future) Critical success factors (what would make the account happy?) Optional technology benefits Knowing this will help you frame how you approach the project. Also, it will help you identify the type of research needed to understand the client’s industry better. Best practice: Depending on the type of research you are doing, you can either outsource it to a specialist, or hire a professional researcher to do it for you. If you are conducting consumer research , you can create a survey or you can ask people who are familiar with the company to complete questionnaires for you. Step 4: Action plan Once you’ve done the research and analysis, it’s time to create your plan. Don’t worry about being perfect at this point – just get your plan drafted and then review it with your key account manager. Ensure everyone is committing to achieving the goals. A successful Key Account Management plan will show you where you need to go next to grow your business and build more value for your customer. Define timelines that are achievable and align with your objectives. What’s the short-term goal? What is the best time to do it? How will you