How to manage big customers?
Definition of key account management:
The purpose of implementing key account management is to concentrate the enterprise's resource advantages, attach strategic importance to key customers, deeply grasp and be familiar with customers' needs and development needs, develop, cultivate and maintain key customers with strategic significance for the survival and development of enterprises in a planned and step-by-step manner, provide excellent products/solutions for key customers, establish and maintain continuous customer relationships, and help enterprises establish and ensure competitive advantages. At the same time, through the management of key customers, we can solve how to fully invest limited resources (people, time and expenses) in key customers, so as to further improve the market share of enterprises in various fields and the success rate of project signing, and improve the overall profit structure.
The purpose of key account management
By constantly tailoring products or services for customers to meet their specific needs, we can cultivate loyal big customers.
The purpose of general key account management [1] can be summarized as the following two points: to create high value for key customers under effective management control;
Under the effective customer relationship management and maintenance, we will provide personalized solutions for large customers, so as to obtain long-term and sustained benefits for large customers.
The scope of key account management covers a wide range of contents, from finding customer clues, establishing customer relationships, selling potential key customers to product installation and implementation, after-sales service and many other aspects of control and management. But its purpose is only one, that is, to provide continuous and personalized solutions for large customers to meet their specific needs, so as to establish long-term and stable relations with large customers and help enterprises establish and ensure competitive advantages.
Advantages of key account management
Through key account management, enterprises can maintain their competitive advantage in the following aspects:
Keep enterprise products/solutions different from competitors and meet customer needs;
After establishing business relations with major customers, during the cooperation period, the two sides gradually understand and adapt to each other, build trust with each other, and their feelings are increasing, which is easy to form customer loyalty;
Form scale operation and gain cost advantage;
Constantly extract valuable information in contact with major customers, develop customer relationships with major customers, and prepare for meeting customer needs;
Analyze and study customers, formulate personalized solutions and establish market segmentation to win customers and increase the comprehensive competitiveness of enterprises.
At the same time, key account management is not an isolated management process or method, but the management of long-term investment of enterprises.
It is a competitive strategy and a necessary means to realize the key account strategy. Therefore, the management of key customers must be combined with the overall marketing strategy of the enterprise, which requires not only systematic, scientific and effective market development of key customers, but also systematic management of key customers with strategic thinking, which requires the continuous efforts of key customer departments and other departments and personnel at all levels. From the business strategy, business strategy, supply chain strategy, project bidding and project implementation of key customers, to the work, life and hobbies of individuals in key customer organizations, we must conduct analysis and research.
Key account management content
In terms of content, key account management is based on rigorous market analysis, competition analysis and customer analysis, analyzes and defines target customers, determines the overall strategic direction, realizes systematic strategic planning management, target and plan management, sales process management, team management, marketing management and customer relationship management, and provides standardized management methods, management tools, management processes and practical management charts for key account-oriented strategic management.
Key account management mainly includes five parts: strategy and target management, market and team management, sales management, control and relationship management. Due to the different environments, capabilities and resources of enterprises, the contents of key account management are different in different enterprises, but generally include:
Define the definition, scope, management, strategy and division of labor of key customers;
Establish systematic whole-process sales management, market management, team management and customer relationship management methods;
Unify customer service interface to improve service quality;
Standardize the interface flow and information flow between key account management and other related business processes, and ensure close cooperation across departments and fast and effective corresponding support systems;
Optimize the marketing/sales organization structure, clarify the responsibilities of personnel in each position, and improve the operation mechanism of customer team;
Strengthen the performance appraisal of each link of the process to ensure the smooth operation of key customer processes;
Establish scientific market analysis, competition analysis and customer analysis models;
Establish a strong customer relationship management support system by technical means; Wait a minute.
Key account management function
Effective key account management is a forward-looking strategic planning and process management standard for developing and managing key accounts. Through key account management, it can be clear: who is the key account? What do big customers want? How to establish a key account strategy? How to get big customers? How are big customers managed? How to maintain key customers? How to manage big customers for a long time? The functions of key account management specifically include:
Achieve key account management and better understand customers.
Understand the customer's operation;
Understand the customer market and its customers;
Understand the operation process of the customer's industry;
Understand the value of the company's products/solutions to customers' business.
Achieve key account management and gain a deeper understanding of competitors
Understand the operation of competitors;
Understand competitors' products/solutions;
Understand the market segmentation of competitors;
Understand the competitive position of competitors;
Where is the competitive advantage of competitors?
Achieve key account management and effective analysis.
Check your performance financially, correctly sum up the reasons for success or failure, and learn from experience and lessons;
Understand the customer's needs comprehensively and profoundly through all aspects of information, and learn to use their own strengths to improve their own shortcomings.
Achieve key account management and determine priorities.
Determine the priority level of major customers according to their value and potential;
Determine the most effective resource allocation according to the scale, potential and relative importance of customers to enterprises.
Realize key account management and define the main attack direction.
Know where you want to lead customers;
Make a long-term goal that can be described by specific stage goals and objectives.
Realize key account management and take the initiative to attack.
Look for and be able to see opportunities that others can't see;
We should look forward with a positive attitude and make an action plan for the same goal.
Realize key account management and make plans scientifically.
Determine which products, services or solutions to provide or produce to customers;
Make a strategy on how to develop customers' potential, and specify the action steps needed to implement this strategy.
Achieve key account management and improve team building.
Establish a customer team with the same vision and goals in the enterprise;
This account team will strive to win key accounts and take concerted actions to achieve performance goals.
Achieve key account management and effective coordination and communication.
Ensure that actions are taken by the right people at the right time;
Keep the information correct and smooth, and both parties can make decisions accordingly.
Achieve key account management and be able to mobilize all possible factors.
Mobilize customer accumulation;
Mobilize the internal and external resources of the enterprise so that it can effectively meet the needs of customers.
Achieve key account management and help customers solve problems.
Solve the delivery, installation or debugging problems of products/solutions;
Help customers solve other problems within their professional scope.
Realize key account management and pay attention to customer dynamics.
Maintain an understanding of customer relationship status;
Constantly understand what customers need and worry about, and improve the value gained in interaction.
Achieve key account management, accurate measurement and evaluation.
Evaluate the return on investment of enterprises to customers;
Meet the needs of enterprises to obtain high return on investment.
Strategic planning of key account management
The strategic planning of key account management should be based on the market, serve key customers, and provide the best service for key customers by using a systematic management platform, so that enterprises can establish loyalty to customers and win a sustainable competitive advantage over competitors. The strategic planning of key account management aims to establish the company's position in the market, successfully compete with competitors, meet customers' needs and achieve excellent performance.
Only by formulating a long-term key account management strategy can we form the possibility of a key account-oriented corporate culture. On the other hand, when enterprises implement the key account management strategy, they cannot do without organizational change and cultural change. At the same time, the medium-and long-term goals formulated in the strategic plan of key account management must be transformed into short-term (annual) goals before they can be implemented and assessed in stages. The implementation of the strategic plan for key account management can only be achieved through target management, and the benefits of combining long-term goals with short-term goals can be brought into play.
The formulation process of key account management strategy includes:
The company's business direction and purpose;
Analyze the external environment of the company and discover marketing opportunities and its threats and challenges;
Internal environment analysis, through objective evaluation of the company's resources, competitiveness, corporate culture and the style of decision makers, to find out the advantages and disadvantages of relative competitors;
Goal setting: based on the analysis of the company's business positioning and internal and external environment, formulate specific strategic goals, such as profit rate, sales growth, market share promotion, technology research and development, brand image, etc.
Enterprise strategy formulation, including overall strategy and marketing strategy formulation. The formulation of enterprise strategy should solve the following problems: how to accomplish the company's goals? How to beat competitors? How to gain a sustainable competitive advantage? How to strengthen the company's long-term market position?
The formulation of key account management strategy, according to the results of enterprise strategic planning, deeply analyzes the product/service, core competence, product production/installation foundation, corporate culture, mission objectives, established market, brand image, technical development and other sub-areas, and then formulates key account management strategy suitable for key account orientation. The formulation of key account management strategy should solve the following problems: Who is the key account? What do big customers want? How are big customers managed? How do big customers manage for a long time?
To determine the key account management strategy, we can comprehensively consider the following benefits: using market trends (industry trends, specific customer development trends and technology trends, etc.). ); Opportunities to add value to customers (making customers more successful); Give priority to customers (make us more successful); Take advantage of competitors' weaknesses and so on.
The Application Value of Key Account Management
1. Ensure that key customers can become a stable source of sales orders.
20% customers bring 80% of the company's business. From the enterprise's point of view, 80% of the projects and income come from large customers who only account for 20% of the total number of customers, while the scattered projects brought by a large number of small and medium-sized customers only account for 20% of their operating income. Of course, this figure varies with the specific business scope and characteristics of the enterprise, but there is no doubt that big customers are of great significance to the enterprise.
2. Maximize the radiation effect of successful big customers.
From the perspective of industry customers, there are some leading enterprises in each industry, but the demand of these enterprises accounts for the vast majority of the overall demand of the industry, and these enterprises are the big customers that most enterprises compete for. If the needs of these big customers change greatly, it is likely to directly affect the overall trend of their industry market. The successful application experience of enterprises to these customers will play a benchmark role, and then radiate to customers in the whole industry.
3. Increase market share by developing key customers.
Most large customers have complex organizational systems, wide geographical coverage and rich business types, which makes the needs of large customers in the industry necessarily a holistic, stable and sustainable plan, unlike small and medium-sized customers who are fragmented and relatively independent. At the same time, the investment of big customers in demand is considerable, so developing big customers is not only the best choice to improve sales performance as a whole, but also an effective way to increase market share.
4. Promoting the needs of key customers has become the driving force for enterprise innovation.
Under the specific economic environment and management background, traditional enterprises pay attention to internal resource management, often ignoring the integration of external resources directly facing customers and lacking corresponding management.
In the key account management strategy, more attention is paid to the integration and application of external resources, which requires enterprises to focus on external resources such as marketing, production research and development, technical support, finance and internal management, realize the organic combination of internal resource management and external resource management, and maintain continuous innovation.
5. Make key customers an important asset of the company.
Big customers become the artery of enterprise development. When a customer's unique assets conflict with other assets, the enterprise should first keep the customer's assets. Because as long as customers are satisfied enough, customer assets can bring long-term effects to enterprises.
Enterprises can strengthen the word-of-mouth effect of key customers by implementing the key customer-oriented business strategy, make full use of their social networks, and further optimize the enterprise customer asset management, so as to maximize customer value.
6. Achieve a win-win situation with key customers.
In the traditional market competition, corporate culture with the sole purpose of maximizing the enterprise's own interests is often formed. This corporate culture can effectively focus the resources of enterprises on how to get more profits, which has promoted the development of enterprises for a long time. Under the guidance of this idea, many enterprises intentionally or unintentionally harm the interests of customers for profit, resulting in low customer satisfaction and loyalty.
In the key customer-oriented business strategy, we regard key customers as important assets of enterprises, so enterprises should pay more attention to customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and customer retention rate. On the basis of establishing stable cooperative relations with many key customers, enterprises can create value for customers and obtain huge profits at the same time, and truly realize the "win-win" between customers and enterprises.
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