The Idea of Key Account Managers
The trust of your customers is particularly valuable. This makes it all the more important that they have a contact person they can rely on. With teamspace, you assign a permanent key account manager to your most important customers. He or she is the first point of contact for all your customers’ concerns.
Everything important about the customer at a glance
teamspace documents all customer transactions for you automatically.
This includes …
- Dates
- Mails and Phone Calls
- Projects
- Offers, Orders and Invoices
- Internal Notes
- and much more
All transactions are displayed in a timeline according to their importance and in chronological order. You determine which elements appear and which do not. This way, the key account manager gets a quick and easy overview of his customers.
Respond to Mails and Calls
Calls
teamspace has an automatic caller identification. If the caller is stored in the contact management, it is immediately displayed and you can see which key account manager is responsible for the respective organization.Mails
Incoming mails are directly assigned to the appropriate CRM contact. You can see the responsible key account manager via the organization. This way, your team knows immediately who the right contact person is for the customer.
VIP Contacts und VIP Managers
In teamspace, we have taken the idea of key account management one step further. You can define a central contact not only for customers, but also for people.
If a contact is particularly important for your business, simply mark him or her as a “VIP” and define a VIP manager. This way, you ensure that the person in question receives the best possible support.
General about Key Account Management
What is Key Account Management?
Key accounts are customers of a company that are particularly important due to their purchasing volume. They are also referred to as strategic customers or global accounts. Key account management aims to provide optimum support for these customers in order to derive the greatest possible economic benefit from the customer relationship.
What are the Tasks of a Key Account Manager?
The tasks of the key account manager can be divided into four areas (see, among others, Homburg/Schäfer/Schneider 2012, p. 334):
Analysis:
Analysis is about understanding the key account as well as possible, including the following questions:
- What are the key account’s most important products, customers, and locations?
- What are the most important processes and procurement goods?
- What are the key account’s basic purchasing needs?
- How well is the company positioned in terms of key accounts compared to the competition?
- Where are there opportunities for improvement in the customer relationship?
Planning:
This area primarily involves planning the following actions:
- Strengthening customer loyalty
- Exploit cross-selling potential
- Improve customer relationship
Implementation:
This involves the implementation of the planned measures as well as …
- Sharing customer-related information within the company
- Involving other departments in key account management
- Train other people or departments on the customer
- Prioritize services for the key account
- Conduct negotiations with the customer
Control:
The following business objectives should be reviewed regularly:
- Is the key account satisfied with the business relationship?
- Does the key account purchase as many products as possible from the company? (Customer penetration)
- How profitable is the customer relationship?
How does CRM Software help with Key Account Management?
CRM software like teamspace collects all important information about a customer. A glance at the digital customer file is enough to find out about the development of a key account.
Individual reports help to analyze the customer. Past and future sales can be easily read off. The timeline shows all activities that were last carried out with the customer. You can plan the next measures using the integrated campaign management.