Customer Relationship Management (Account Management)
"Account Management" is a word that confuses most of us! And it is only partly true in definition. Yes, managing our accounts sounds good! But what for? And what do we need to do for that to work?
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First a better word for "Account Management" (as we use it) would be: customer relationship management! (CRM) The point is, you are not managing an abstract thing in some system! You are caring for your customer and all your contacts involved in a manner that creates value for the both of you.
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Secondly one has to distinguish between Account Management and Account Development. The first, means managing a partnership's needs, like delivery, communication an documentation. Many of us already do this in one or the other way. However, the real impact happens by combining it with proactive and directed Account Development. This means taking initiative in strategically shaping the partnership together with your contacts at the partner firm. It can range from improving the customer experience over creating new added features to plainly increasing the quantity of the partnership by expanding into new departments. (More eXchange!)
Content:
Why CRM?
“Why should I focus on it? Isn't sales more effective?”
First of all, every sales person knows it is a lot easier to talk about new opportunity openings with warm contacts. So how much easier must it be to talk about a new opening with hot contacts who already are in an active partnership? This means that without a lot of effort like calling and researching and educating new partners, we can just ask for more positions. And if you were satisfied with a product you bought at a large online vendor, would you use it another time? Yes. So these people are already convinced of our value! We just need to figure out why and how we can extend that value to more parts of their company. And how to do that, you can find out below...
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Secondly, take a look at the chart below and tell me what you can see...
​This is the development of National Exchange over the last 7 years. And as you can see it pretty much stayed at the same level for all time...
Until 2017 when the BDT implemented active CRM to develop old and new cooperations at the same time! And the results are obvious! This 84% growth changed the way we look at the possibilities in partnerships and especially also in new Partnerships like trivago (5RE - first year) or even Roche (16RE - first year)!
And as Jakob (National Exchange Manager 2017) said "I don't have any qualifications, but I do a lot!" so not knowing much about it is not an excuse ;)
What is Account Management?
“What do I need to do, to show customer care?“
In order to manage and develop Accounts, you can almost entirely rely on our product: Global Talent!
We are all sure that Global Talent is a great product and that AIESEC is providing life changing experiences to both Interns and Companies right? So what more do we need to convince our Partners that we are amazing?
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The simple steps to great Account Management are DELIVERY and COMMUNICATION!
DELIVERY
We deliver the 16 Exchange Standards to both Intern and Company!
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For Information on how to do that, check out the page here on the Knowledge Base.
COMMUNICATION
Communicate frequently about the achievements and plans for your partnership. Here is a Communication Plan to guide you:
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Weekly/Bi-Weekly/Monthly Call: Stay in touch and in the mind of your contact person. (With active opens this should happen once a week to keep your customers in the loop)
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Quarterly Service Review: Give and receive feedback and improve your partnership aligned to this. (Do this separated from single Exchanges, not as Feedback Meeting)
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Annual Strategic Discussion: Align your LC’s services and the planned projects and strategies of the partner, to create more value/exchange AND set common goals for the next year
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Transition Meeting: A get to know and strategy meeting for the partner to feel valued and for you to be able to deliver spotlessly even directly after the Take-Over.
What is Account Development?
“How can I make YOUR experience better?”
Basically we said that Account Management is the foundation on which we build a partnership. But only by adding Account Development, we achieve impact. And Account Development can be defined almost as easily as Account Management:
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Account Development is the strategic framework and manner of Interaction with your Partner!
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It can easily be broken down into key behaviours:
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You can also use these Values to sell your customer relationship management to your leads/partners, they will love it!
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There are many different approaches on how to execute Customer Relationship Management. Find two of the most fitting and powerful tools here: CEPT & NPS
EYE-TO-EYE
COMMUNICATION
See eye-to-eye even though they are the customer. Both of you gain from working together, or else they would not do it.
It enables you to address issues and solve them together.
OPEN
FEEDBACK
Create spaces on meetings to give and receive feedback. Ask your partners what they liked/ disliked about your service and what brought them the biggest benefit, to get better together.
PLAN &
ANALYSE
Use the touch-points you have to plan the next and assess the previous performance together.
Align your plans to the expectations and needs of both sides.
Planning & Analysing Accounts
CRM Team Management
​Find the presentations here:
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Link:
Common Upscaling Strategies
“Who is going to make this happen?“
If you want to develop your partnership, it is always helpful to come up with ideas on how to serve more departments or create additional value for them. These can then be used in Calls or Meetings to consider new strategies or ways of collaboration. Here are some easy/common examples:
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Check their other opened Internships on the website to see if you can serve some of them
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Ask your contacts about their internal strategies (Retention, Talent-Pool, Internationalization, CSR...) and how you could help them
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Check the company's Social Media Profiles to find out about strategies and latest developments to leverage on with your product (LinkedIn/Xing, Facebook, Instagram...)
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Ask your contacts if they can promote you or the intern's-experience internally/invite you to promote it
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Search for Alumni within the company which can help you place some promotion in new departments of the company (best on LinkedIn/Xing, questions to Torben BDT
Full CRM Presentation
​Find the presentation here: Customer Relationship Management