Account Management is Loyalty Management

Have you ever asked yourself why your organization has account managers? I hope it is not just to avoid the term sales representative, because customers have low esteem of people with" sales" in their job title. Account managers are there to help accounts (clients) to buy more from your brand.

What is the behavior of a client called who buys repeatedly from a brand? According to 12MANAGE Thex Excutive Fast Track, this is called loyalty. So my hypothesis is: Successful account managers are good at managing loyalty and thus getting existing clients to buy more from their brand. Successful account managers are thus able to get more from what they have.

This is one way of adopting to the new normal where budgets are tight and resources are scarce. The first step to this goal is though that you do not loose anything from what you have. What is the strategic asset not to loose for account managers, and the whole company for that matter? Clients, which to me, is the term for loyal customers.

On January 26, 2010 I gave a Masterclass over at Top Sales Experts entitled “How Account Managers Can Grow and Keep Their Strategic Assets: Loyal Customers”.

In this Masterclass, I discussed how the above definition, together with the Net Promoter Score Model by Fred Reicheld and the Model presented by McKinsey on the Consumer Decision Journey can be combined into one actionable model to understand how to become a better account manager by focusing on customer loyalty.

I helped participants to understand:

• 
  
  
  Why account managers should put less focus on the sales cycle and concentrate on what happens with the customer before and after a purchase is made.
• 
  
  
  Why this new focus pays off
• 
  
  
  Why there is an “early mover advantage” in proactive account management
• 
  
  
  What you do on a strategic level when you concentrate on what happens with the customer before and after a purchase is made
• 
  
  
  Why it pays off to be honest with the promises you make to customers

The concept presented is based on many years of experience in coaching strategic account management teams, allowing participants to understand their potential cost of pain with their current account management approach and how to get remedies for this pain.

Should you be interested in this Masterclass there is a replay available over at  Top Sales Experts .