Account management
Account management is about ensuring you give your most important clients sufficient attention. The D for Discipline plays a key role here. The pitfall is that you only pay attention to clients when there's a new request or complaint, or when you simply don't have enough work.
How do you approach account management in practice? We propose a simple approach:
Divide your customers into categories and determine which proactive actions you'll take for each category. Naturally, you'll pay most attention to your DVKs. This stands for Sustainable Leading Customers (and, of course, not for Big Fat Customers).
Explanation of the categories in the table:
- AAA customers or DVKs: the small group of customers that account for a significant portion of revenue and profit, or show great promise. Think of the 80/20 rule.
- AA customers: Just great customers.
- A-clients: The other side of the 80/20 rule. These are the clients you'd rather not invest too much extra energy in.
Next, you'll define a set of relationship management actions for each category. The table below provides an example. This will help you determine how much attention and time you want to devote to each customer. This will help you strengthen the relationship, get to know each other better, and determine how you can better assist the customer. A quick calculation will help you determine how much time you can reserve in their schedules.
It helps if you assign someone to coordinate these actions for each customer, especially your AAA customers. Hate the term "account manager"? Alternatives include Chief BFF (Best Friends Forever), Head of Hassle Prevention, Chief Customer Happiness, or Customer Hugger.
If all goes well, account management will naturally lead to new opportunities to help that customer.
