5 Ways to Keep Competitors Out of Your Top Customers

No surprise every competitor wants your top customer, especially if they represent significant amounts of profitable revenue. In a highly competitive global business economy, all top customers are vulnerable for capture. Corporate suppliers are continuing to grow through mergers and acquisitions and with ever increasing revenue needs, your customers are now on their radar screen!

Here are 5 ways you can keep hungry competitor out of your top customers:

1. Learn, be able to articulate, and capitalize on your value proposition – What is the strongest component of your solution that maintains their business
2. Maximize relevancy and impact – Identify gaps that are minimizing your relevancy and appreciated impact, especially financial impact
3. Strengthen your relationship network – Recognize gaps in your relationship network, specifically those who influence and make decisions, before they switch to a competitor
4. Engage with your customers more often and more intimately – Create reasons and monetized values to remain engaged with your customer
5. Act on your customer knowledge – Gather, analyze, communicate and develop customer-centric action plans based on voice of the customer feedback

Customer intelligence (direct customer feedback) keeps out competitors! Embed it into your business development strategy and process and then ACT ON IT. Make customer intelligence the basis for continuous engagement with customers like never before. Right actions with top customers is poison for competitors!

LoyaltyProfessional™ is a service of The Chapman Group that assist clients in gaining important customer intelligence through a unique methodology and process for the gathering, analyzing and acting on critical customer, team and industry feedback and insights. Act now to keep out competition!

 

More resources available on this same topic at www.ChapmanHQ.com

The Chapman Group’s Blog has MOVED!!

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Please visit our blog in its new location at chapmanhq.com/blog/ and take a spin through our new website while you are there.

About The Chapman Group
The Chapman Group partners with B2B sales and account management organizations to identify and solve sales and account management challenges resulting in stronger relationships, increased revenues, and higher margins for suppliers as well as our customers.

Best Practices in Account Management Strategy… Now Mobile!

The Chapman Group presents the final episode of the Tune-Up Strategy for Best- In-Class Strategic Account Management— a 5-part video series on expert Sales and Account Management strategies for improving relationships, revenues and margins with your top revenue-grossing B2B customers.

Part 5, ‘Measurements and Metrics’ defines the most proficient approach to implementing the precise metrics that help sales execs and account leaders effectively measure strategic account performance.

In part 5, you’ll discover metrics and measurement tactics that enable you to quantify the activities impacting your strategic accounts.

Download the Tune-Up Series Podcast

Click the link below to listen to the podcast now — or right-click and select ‘Save Link As’ to download the entire series on MP3.

Podcast:  Tune Up Strategy for Best In Class Strategic Account Management

Tune-Up Strategy for Best-in-Class SAM | Part 4: Influencing Right Action with the Right Insight

Do you have the right knowledge and strategy to effectively keep and grow customers? In this segment we help organizations answer this question by addressing the must-know elements critical to optimizing the bottom line through Customer Facts and Insight.

This video examines the drivers and emerging best practices of having the right knowledge for:

• Voice of the Customer Feedback: Knowing how to move satisfied customers to long-term loyal and committed partners
• Internal Team Feedback: Measuring the impact of your customer facing resources
• Relationship Data Points: Measuring the alignment between your organization and the Customer.
• Strategic Account Plans: Developing an ongoing internal/external account review strategy.
• Joint and Balanced Scorecards: Closing the loop with metrics on collaborative customer/supplier performance
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Learn more about these and other best practices for sales and account management from The Chapman Group on our website at ChapmanHQ.com.

Part III: Process | Tune-Up Strategy for a Best-In-Class Strategic Account Management Program

 

Part III of ‘The Tune-Up Strategy for a Best-In-Class Strategic Account Management Program’ series covers strategically developing best-in-class management processes for the predictable, repeatable and measurable events that occur within the following segments of strategic account management:

•             Relationship Management

•             Account Management

•             Opportunity Management

•             Customer Engagement

•             Value Selling/Delivery 

Watch and learn how to champion these best practices to optimize the processes within your strategic account management program.

 

This video marks the 3rd segment of our 5-part series on tuning up your strategic account management programs for 2013.

You can catch the recap of the full video series on the SAM blog:

 

Part I – Account Segmentation

Best practices for working with the right customers/accounts

Part II – People

Best practices for developing best-in-class account management teams

Part III – Process (Now on TheMetricsChannel)

Best practices for optimizing strategic account management processes

 

Coming Up…

Parts IV – Knowledge

How to get the ultimate knowledge to keep and grow high-value strategic customers

Part V – Measurements/Metrics

How to measure for the expected outcomes of account performance

 

Register to receive these and other updates on SAM news, trends and best practices on our homepage at ChapmanHQ.com.

 

Annual SAM Tune-Up Strategy Part 1: Account Segmentation — How to Stop Over-Investing in the Wrong Customers

Managing Strategic Accounts is a lot like being the captain of a super tanker ship like the Knock Nevis (yes, like cat herder at times, too, but we’ll go with the ship captain analogy here)…

Your compass shows you the way but it does not tell you exactly how to turn that massive tanker around and head in the right direction.

Relationships, Revenue and Margin (RR&M) objectives are your compass.  When your strategic account management program is aligned to these objectives it’s smoother sailing.  When it is not, it’s time to alter the course for your program.

There are 5 key factors to moving the ship ahead with your strategic accounts. These will make or break your job of over-sea-ing that your strategic accounts make the necessary contribution toward sales objectives.  These 5 Key Factors include:

• Segmentation
• People
• Process
• Knowledge
• Measurements and Metrics

In Part 1 of our latest video, Dennis talks Segmentation; how to set and calibrate your compass in the right direction on the right accounts.  Watch the video to learn how to effectively invest valuable resources; people, time and capital – all invested on the right accounts — to appreciate the right financial outcomes!

The outcome:  improved relationships, revenues, and margins!

 

Seas the day! Now is the time for a new strategy to come aboard and get your strategic accounts in shipshape for 2013.

Happy Sailing,

 

 

P.S.  Look for Our Next Blog Update on Part 2; the People that Impact your account management strategy!

 

Additional Resource | White Paper:  Clients Customers, or Buyers; Which Do you Have?

Learn How Account Segmentation Maximizes the Margin Between Revenue and Cost of Goods and Services.

The time has arrived to develop clarity, focus and unique servicing models on those select accounts that are the life-blood of our business’ future. This white paper is intended to stimulate thoughts and action processes to meet the challenge of “profitably” servicing and in-turn retaining, acquiring and developing a unique portfolio of accounts; locally, nationally and globally.

Performance Drivers in Strategic Account Managers

Discover How Pulling the Right Levers Can Increase Sales and Account Management Performance in Your Organization

Performance Drivers | Video Overview
In our latest video, President and Founder, Dennis Chapman Sr. outlines the model of performance drivers that has consistently helped Fortune 1000 sales and account management organizations optimize the performance of their customer facing-personnel.

Learn how the proper coaching and development of these performance drivers; Skills, (value) Delivery, Product (knowledge), Aptitude and Expectations will make the difference between mid-level sales numbers and top performing success.