7 GOOD ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

Key account management, also called KAM, is the process of going after, winning, and keeping key accounts. This process involves identifying key accounts, winning their businesses over, and creating and sustaining a mutually beneficial relationship with them.

1. What is a Key Account?  These are the customers  that are manages separately from the other regular customers. This may be because such accounts are hign in profits, sales, potential or capability development. A key account is managed as such not only by the sales department but by all the departments. However, salespeople are the ones who are most responsible for implementing them because they’re the ones at the KAM front line. Here are some things to keep in mind when it comes to managing key accounts.
2. Use a Key Account Management Strategy : If the company has a formal key account management strategy in place, the company has done half the job. Its salespeople only need to learn and implement the strategy. For salespeople who sell their own products or services, they need to craft a KAM strategy. Key accounts are the lifeblood of any business and salespeople shouldn’t improvise as they do KAM. 
3. Define What a Key Account Is : If each and every account is a “key” account; no customer is key !  When there are too many key accounts, you are spreading them too thin and hence no customer is satisfied and retained. That’s why even before identifying and going after key accounts, salespeople should know what makes for a key account. By having a clear set of standards, it will be much easier to accurately focus on real key accounts. There are different ways to filter key accounts. But the best principle is the company’s objectives. Key accounts must be filtered through their strategic values, or their ability to help the company accomplish its goals. Strategic value is often linked to financial value but strategic value may include other things like ability to enter a new but very promising market , or to develope a new internal capability 
4. Choose a Few Accounts Onl  Implementing KAM requires a customized approach because every account has specific needs. This includes creating offers or packages that are exclusive to key accounts. This is much more complicated and time consuming compared to regular accounts. By taking on too many accounts from the start, salespeople may get overwhelmed and fail to serve key accounts properly. It’s better to start with a few rather than too many . It is better to add more accounts as time goes by.  
5. Establish the Right Numbers : Salespeople won’t be able to manage things they can’t measure. Without measurement the salespeople cannot understand how good or bad they’re doing. That’s why salespeople should establish and pay attention to the right numbers or metrics. The common metric used in sales is sales volume or value. However, there are times that sales volume isn’t the only crucial metric. Examples of other metrics salespeople can use to objectively monitor key account management performance include turnaround time and satisfaction rating.
6. Know Key Accounts Intimately and talk to them Regularly Unless your customers feel that you genuinely care and have their best interests at heart, they won’t trust you and do business. Cultivating a relationship starts with knowing them intimately and having a genuine interest. By being genuinely interested, it means salespeople should learn how to actively listen. This includes asking relevant questions to draw out important information about customers and putting themselves in their customers’ shoes.  And a salesperson should continue cultivating that relationship once it has started as an ongoing process or endeavor. Managing an account means continuous monitoring, serving, and selling, among other things and regularly touch base with their key account customers ( all members of the DMU - Decision Making Unit ). It doesn’t have to be always in person, though regularly meeting up with them face-to-face can be very helpful. At the very least, salespeople should call the key people who represent their key account customers to maintain business relationships.  
7. Provide Solutions, Do not only focus on selling produ  Many times the key accounts are highly-informed customers. As such, the salespersons  need to know some important principles for selling to such customers. One of these principles is to focus on customers’ needs and wants — focus on providing solutions. Salespeople shouldn’t be hard-selling or pushing products to their customers’ faces. Being highly-informed customers means they might not be easily persuaded by products and features. But since most people buy with their hearts and justify purchases with their minds, focusing on solutions to their concerns can be a good way to get to their hearts and convince them to transact.  Focusing on solutions means either (A) ocusing on the benefits or the specific solutions to problems that the products or services’ features can provide (B) Enumerating the features side-by-side with how they can help solve customers’ problems. When customers see in specific and even personal terms how a product or service can help them achieve their goals, it can be easier to convince them to continue patronizing the business.
8. Sharpen the Saw Continuously KAM salespeople need to take initiative to always learn new things that will help raise their game continuously.  This is because the kind of account management they do is highly specialized in nature and the accounts they handle are some of the most sought-after ones, regardless of the industry they’re in.  Competitors will never stop attempting to win KAM customers for their business, and if salespeople don’t continuously improve on their craft, they risk losing their KAM customers to their competitors. Sales is one of the most competitive and cut-throat jobs any person can have, and a big chunk of any salesperson’s continued success comes with identifying, winning, and keeping key customer accounts.