CRM (customer relationship management) has become an essential business tool in the last decade. A recent statistics roundup from Tech.co found that:
- 91% of companies with more than 11 employees use a CRM system
- Overall CRM usage increased from 56% in 2018 to 74% in 2019
- CRM is expected to achieve over $80 billion in revenue by 2025
For anyone who has used a modern CRM platform, these numbers will come as no surprise. These versatile software toolsets can:
- Bolster productivity
- Increase operational efficiency
- Improve collaboration across teams and departments
- Drive customer acquisition, success, and retention
- Provide 360° visibility into your business
A great example of the way in which a CRM system can achieve this is through strategic account management.
Using the incredible visibility that a CRM provides, companies can identify their key accounts and empower their teams to serve them better, recommend products and services to suit their specific needs, and ensure their long-term success and growth.
In this article, we will help you understand the ins-and-outs of strategic account management and provide tips for optimizing these game-changing processes.
For even more strategies on managing your key accounts, check out our Key Account Management Playbook.
What is strategic account management?
Strategic account management is a business approach in which a company identifies and prioritizes its most important customers and then develops and implements a tailored strategy to effectively manage and grow the relationship with those customers.
Strategic account management involves a coordinated effort by different departments within a company, including sales, marketing, customer service, and product development, to align their efforts around the needs and goals of the key accounts.
Strategic account management aims to establish long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with key accounts that are critical to a company’s success.
This is typically accomplished by taking a more consultative and collaborative approach to sales and account management rather than a transactional or reactive one.
A strategic account management program may involve conducting in-depth account reviews and needs assessments, developing customized solutions, providing ongoing support and training, and collaborating closely with customers to ensure their needs are met.
Strategic account management is particularly important in industries where a small number of key accounts represent a significant portion of a company’s revenue or where the cost of acquiring a new customer is high.
By prioritizing these accounts and developing a tailored approach to managing them, companies can increase customer loyalty, reduce churn, and generate new business opportunities.
The 3 phases of strategic account management
Strategic account management can be broken up into 3 phases:
- Identifying key accounts
- Analyzing key accounts
- Optimizing key accounts
Breaking the process down into distinct phases provides a clear structure and roadmap for your account management team to follow. It also helps your team understand what success looks like.
Identifying your key accounts
The first phase of strategic account management is identifying your key accounts. This stage is critical for ensuring you are spending your resources wisely and targeting only those accounts that offer long-term growth potential.
There are 3 steps to follow in this phase:
- Conduct a SWOT analysis- Perform a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) for each account to evaluate the benefit that strategic account management could provide for both you and them.
Look for accounts that have the highest potential for growth or those that are most important to retain.
Also, consider the strengths of your products and services and how those strengths could benefit potential key accounts.
- Evaluate relationships- Evaluate the existing relationships and history with each potential key account.
This can help you identify the right person to assign to an account as well as help you identify potential key accounts that could use some nurturing before you approach them.
- Prioritize your key accounts- Based on your evaluation, prioritize the accounts that offer the greatest potential for long-term value and align with your company’s strategic objectives.
Analyzing your key accounts
Once you have identified the key accounts you want to target, it is time to analyze those accounts.
There are 3 steps to follow in this phase:
- Segment your key accounts- Start by segmenting your key accounts into categories such as geography, industry, or customer type.
This provides you with a better understanding of your customers and their needs and can help you identify common challenges and opportunities.
This also allows you to tailor your products, services, and account management approach to meet the specific needs of each segment during the optimization phase.
- Identify the decision makers- Identify the key decision-makers and influencers within the potential key accounts and determine their level of influence and decision-making power.
This step ensures you are talking to the right people and can help you tailor your messaging and approach.
- Develop a deeper understanding of your key accounts- Gather information about the account, including its industry, market position, and financial performance, as well as any potential challenges or opportunities that may impact the account.
Optimizing your key accounts
With a deeper understanding of your key accounts, it’s now time to lay out a plan to grow those accounts and retain them well into the future.
- Create an action plan- Use the information gathered during the analysis to create an account plan that outlines the goals, objectives, and strategies for the account.
The plan should also include a roadmap for achieving the goals, as well as the resources required to execute the plan.
When creating an action plan ask questions like:
- What are the long-term business goals of the account? How can your products and services help them achieve those goals?
- What are the biggest challenges and pain points facing the account? How can your products and services help them overcome those challenges?
- What products or services does the account already use? How could those offerings be expanded?
- What existing products or services could the account benefit from that they aren’t already using?
- What future products or services would benefit the account?
- Make your pitch- Just like with any sales pitch, this step is all about positioning.
Your pitch should be tailored to the specific needs of the account and the tone should speak to the decision-makers.
- Monitor and measure progress- Continuously monitor progress against the goals and objectives outlined in the account plan.
Use KPIs (key performance indicators) to measure success and make adjustments to the plan as needed.
CRM is the best toolset for strategic account management
There is no toolset on the market better for strategic account management than CRM. A modern CRM platform can help you:
- Centralize data- A CRM system provides a centralized database for all customer data, including account history, contacts, interactions, and sales data.
This enables account management teams to access critical customer information from one place, helping them to manage accounts more effectively and make informed strategic decisions.
- Segment customers- A CRM system can segment customers based on various criteria, such as revenue, profitability, and buying behavior.
This helps account managers identify and focus on high-value accounts and develop specific strategies to retain and grow those accounts.
- Track engagement- A CRM system can track customer engagement and interaction across multiple touchpoints, such as emails, phone calls, and meetings.
This information can help account managers understand customer needs, preferences, and pain points, enabling them to tailor their communication and engagement strategy for each customer.
- Collaborate more efficiently- A CRM system can facilitate collaboration between sales, marketing, product, account management, and customer service teams.
This enables teams to work together to deliver a better customer experience and identify opportunities for cross-selling and upselling.
- Simplify reporting- A CRM system can generate reports and analytics on customer data, providing insights into trends, opportunities, and areas for improvement.
This information can help account managers make informed decisions and develop strategies for long-term account growth.
CRM is a powerful tool for strategic account management, enabling account managers to deliver a better customer experience, build stronger relationships, and drive revenue growth.
FreeAgent CRM provides deeper insights and better collaboration for improved account management
FreeAgent CRM is designed for today’s world of work and our robust toolset is ideally suited to supporting the varied work processes of modern businesses. FreeAgent is:
- Easy to use: FreeAgent works like you expect modern apps to work, providing a user experience that feels fresh and familiar. Teams love working in FreeAgent, leading to high adoption and greater ROI.
- User-configurable: FreeAgent can be configured by you to work the way you do. This means you don’t need outside support to add a form field, adjust a CRM automated workflow, or try out a new process.
- Customizable: With FreeAgent, apps, forms, and configurations are all completely customizable, allowing you to capture and connect your data in any way you like.
To see FreeAgent in action, get a demo, and discover for yourself how FreeAgent can help you have workdays full of impact.
