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“A relationship, I think, is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies.” — Woody Allen, Annie Hall Key Account Management has always been built on a foundation of intuition backed by the wisdom from innumerable conversations, and strength of human relationships. Revenue success has always hinged on the ability to read between the lines, sense the unspoken, and navigate the invisible currents of organizational power with experience-honed instincts. The best Account Managers in the world have always had an innate ability to detect what’s happening beneath the surface. They could read human emotions, organizational shifts, and the subtleties of stakeholder dynamics. From Digital Execution to True Intelligence: The Evolution of Account Management For decades, account management solutions has focused on digital transformation—moving scattered processes, spreadsheets, and presentations into structured digital systems. The early 2000s saw the first wave of solutions, mostly templated methodologies wrapped in advisory services. These were not products in the true sense but structured playbooks that evangelized proprietary models rather than offering real intelligence. By the 2010s, KAM platforms evolved beyond templates. They began capturing various aspects of an Account Manager’s workflow—tracking relationships, mapping influence, and structuring engagement strategies. Yet, despite their advancements, they remained execution tools. They digitized workflows but could not fix the intelligence layer on top of intuition. The Missing Piece: Why the Intelligence Layer Was Never Fixed The last two decades saw incremental progress, but the last two years have brought a transformation unlike anything before. AI is poised to rewrite the very foundation of intelligence in account management. For the first time, AI has a real shot at being truly intelligent! It will amplify human decision-making, spot patterns beyond human perception, and eliminate the blind spots that intuition alone could never fully overcome. This isn’t an evolution. It’s a transformation powered by AI. And it’s happening now. 2025 marks the year Key Account Management begins its transition to an unprecedented level of intelligence and foresight, paving the way for an Omniscient KAM in the future! AI in KAM as an Amplifier, Not a Replacement Gone are the days when Account Managers painstakingly created relationship maps, pieced together fragmented data, and relied on tribal knowledge to assess account health. AI in account management is transforming beyond being a system of record—it is on the path to becoming an active participant in decision-making, operating at a level above traditional intelligence. In the near future, AI will not just record data; it will synthesize, interpret, and act upon it across an organization’s entire tech stack: Structured CRM entries (pipeline status, deal movement, key contacts) Unstructured meeting transcripts (Gong, Chorus, recorded conversations) Conversational repositories (email, chat interactions, sentiment analysis) Transactional data (pricing configurations and discount structures in CPQ systems, approval workflows and contract adjustments in Quote-to-Cash processes, purchasing patterns and vendor negotiations in procurement systems) Soon, AI won’t just detect sentiment changes or unspoken hesitation—it will contextualize them against historical account behaviors, competitive pressures, and broader industry shifts. The Account Manager of tomorrow will have a complete, real-time view of their accounts that extends far beyond what is visible today. With agentic conversations—query-based AI assistance—Account Managers will be able to: Ask AI who to follow up with before key opportunities slip away Get notified about clients showing early churn signals—before they become a risk Detect subtle, unspoken concerns in meeting transcripts, before they escalate Have AI automatically set up follow-up meetings based on past interactions This future is fast approaching. AI will soon move beyond today’s “play fetch” phase—where it merely retrieves information—to a state where it analyzes, anticipates, predicts, and recommends actions. It won’t just flag an account’s lukewarm response in a call or detect a subtle shift in tone—it will correlate those signals with historical interactions, stakeholder movements, and transactional patterns to reveal what they truly indicate. More importantly, it will prescribe the next best action—whether to intervene, re-engage, or escalate—to retain, manage, and expand key accounts. And while we may not be fully there yet—we are closer than ever before. Why This Shift Is Happening Now Every fundamental shift in human history follows a pattern. First, we rely on raw human effort, experience, and the unstructured dance of trial and error. Then, we build tools to extend our reach, sharpen our senses, and make the invisible visible. And finally, we arrive at a moment when the tool does more than assist us—it changes us. The printing press did not just make books cheaper; it restructured society around knowledge. The internet did not just connect people; it rewired how we work, learn, and communicate. Now, AI is doing the same for business relationships. The Writing on the Wall! Salesforce, the $340 billion titan of CRM, has made its move. They’ve integrated Key Account Management into their core offerings, proving that traditional strategic accounts management is no longer enough. It’s not just an addition but an admission by the tech-giant. It also proves… The need for companies to explore, invest and measure their KAM stance (before it is too late) That data-driven intelligence is driving KAM success. The traditional KAM playbook is not just evolving; it’s being rewritten in real time. While Salesforce’s entry into AI-powered KAM validates the market shift, true relationship intelligence goes beyond CRM. 2025 belongs to those leveraging deep, integrated insights rather than surface-level automation. Here are the 4 major shifts that will happen in 2025. AI as the Central Nervous System of KAM Brain Unlike traditional KAM based on CRMs, which merely automates processes and logs data, advanced KAM tools powered by AI will move beyond structured data, incorporating unstructured insights from meetings, contracts, and stakeholder discussions to uncover opportunities and risks that have previously gone unnoticed. This will translate to: A relationship intelligence engine that will map power dynamics and hidden sentiment shifts. A living strategy framework that can replace outdated, static account plans. A blind-spot eliminator to surface unseen risks and overlooked opportunities. 1. The Rise of
Webinar: DemandFarm’s Spring Release ‘24: Omphalos – Relationship Mapping That Puts People At the Centre
In the fast-paced world of B2B sales, Account-based Selling (ABS) has become the go-to strategy for sales leaders. However, at the core of ABS is an often-overlooked perspective–selling to the humans behind the steely structures that make up their accounts lists. Only a handful of companies and sales leaders are laying down relationship targets, and an even smaller slice plots a course to hit them. The consequence? It’s 2024 and relationship mapping still remains ad-hoc, with account managers struggling to identify the right people and initiate meaningful conversations. This experts-led webinar discusses a panacea for all these challenges – Omphalos, DemandFarm’s Spring Release: 1. How an organization’s Account Based Selling (ABS) maturity affects their approach to relationship mapping 2. 5 challenges that make it hard for your AMs to identify the right people, initiate meaningful conversations, and stitch back their efforts to the larger business goals. 3. Live demo of how you can make methodical relationship mapping the norm across your key accounts portfolio with our Spring Release. Watch the webinar on-demand:
Best Salesforce Add-ons You Must Have in 2025
Salesforce’s revenue reached approximately $31.25 billion in 2023. Not just that, over 150,000 companies globally depend on Salesforce for CRM services, with the US making up 62% of Salesforce customers. Salesforce continues to dominate the CRM market, reflecting its widespread adoption and the value it brings to businesses across various sectors. Salesforce’s AppExchange plays a critical role in this success, offering add-ons that expand and enhance the platform’s capabilities. These tools not only streamline operations but also boost efficiency and improve customer engagement. By leveraging these add-ons, companies can effectively manage their customer relationships and accelerate development cycles, ensuring they stay ahead in the competitive market landscape. Let’s look at the best Salesforce add-ons that can enable your business in 2024 and effectively increase your revenue. Top Key Account Management Applications 1. DemandFarm DemandFarm’s key account management software integrates with Salesforce, using the platform’s features to provide a solution for managing accounts. The software offers real-time market knowledge, decision-making capabilities, and advantages across your strategic account portfolio. DemandFarm offers a 100% Salesforce-native product suite to manage key accounts and maximize revenue growth from your portfolio. You get dedicated features to create and track complex account plans, map out whitespaces, manage strategic relationships at scale, and optimize sales cycles for large deals. Being Salesforce-native allows DemandFarm users to access account data and analytics within their CRM, enabling them to make decisions with real-time data. DemandFarm can also be customized to fit all popular sales methodologies and their custom variations. Top 3 Salesforce DevOps tools 1. Copado Copado is a comprehensive DevOps platform streamlining the entire release management lifecycle for Salesforce applications. It enables end-to-end deployment automation, from planning and coding to testing and releasing. Copado also integrates DevSecOps practices, which embed security at every step of the development process, thus enhancing the overall security posture of deployments. The platform’s back-end infrastructure supports agile methodologies, enabling faster and more reliable deployment cycles. 2. Gearset Gearset is a tool designed to manage Salesforce deployments effectively. It offers advanced features such as continuous integration and delivery, crucial for maintaining consistency between development and production environments. Gearset provides a comprehensive solution for comparing differences between Salesforce metadata and handling deployments across multiple environments. It also simplifies the management of release pipelines, enabling teams to deploy changes more frequently and with fewer errors. 3. Prodly Prodly focuses on Application Operations, particularly for complex Salesforce applications, making it ideal for administrators and sales operations to enhance operational efficiency. The tool facilitates faster and safer deployments of applications like CPQ, Billing, and custom apps, by automating the manual steps usually involved in updating datasets in Salesforce environments. This not only speeds up deployment processes but also reduces the chances of human error. Top 3 Chatbot Integration Applications 1. Qualified Qualified captures and converts leads by engaging visitors the moment they land on your site. The chatbot qualifies leads through interactive and intelligent conversations, directly linking with Salesforce to ensure that sales teams receive real-time notifications about potential customers. This targeted approach ensures that the chatbot engages with potential leads who are most likely to convert, making the interactions more efficient and effective. Moreover, Qualified’s seamless integration with Salesforce is a key feature that empowers sales teams. As the chatbot engages with visitors and gathers intelligence, it feeds this data directly into Salesforce, creating or updating leads with enriched data. Sales teams receive real-time alerts about these interactions, which enables them to step in when a human touch is needed to close the deal. This integration ensures that no potential lead falls through the cracks, as all information captured by Qualified is promptly and accurately recorded in Salesforce. 2. Drift Drift is a conversational marketing platform that facilitates communication between businesses and potential customers directly on the website. It’s designed to detect intent and respond with automated yet personalized messages or route important conversations to the right salesperson, thereby enhancing lead conversion rates. Drift can decide whether to handle the conversation automatically or escalate it to a human sales representative. This ensures that visitors are always speaking to the right person or bot, enhancing the customer experience and increasing efficiency. Integrating Drift with Salesforce amplifies its effectiveness by enabling a seamless transition of conversation data into actionable insights within the CRM. This data is invaluable for tailoring follow-up communications and for strategizing more effective sales approaches. Moreover, Drift’s Salesforce integration facilitates enhanced lead scoring and segmentation. By analyzing the details of conversations and visitor behaviors, it helps refine lead scoring models, enabling sales teams to prioritize leads based on their likelihood to convert. 3. Intercom Intercom is a customer communication platform that supports marketing, sales, and support. Its ability to deliver personalized communication at scale makes it invaluable. Intercom can automate tasks such as booking meetings or sending follow-up messages, and its integration with Salesforce means all interactions are tracked and stored, providing a comprehensive view of customer engagements. The integration with Salesforce enhances Intercom’s capabilities significantly. By syncing with Salesforce, all interactions that occur through Intercom are automatically tracked and logged within the CRM. This provides teams with a comprehensive view of customer engagements, allowing for more informed decision-making and strategy development. Sales teams can see the full context of a customer’s interactions, support history, and engagement preferences, all within Salesforce. This integration ensures that data flows seamlessly between systems, optimizing the customer lifecycle management. 2 Must Have Customer Service Enhancement Applications 1. SurveyVista SurveyVista stands out as a powerful tool for enhancing customer engagement by leveraging the data housed in your CRM system. This tool allows organizations to create customized surveys, forms, and quizzes that can be directly integrated into marketing campaigns. By doing so, businesses can gather valuable insights from their existing CRM data, making it easier to understand customer preferences, satisfaction levels, and potential areas for product or service improvement. The ability to tailor questions based on specific customer data points ensures that the feedback collected is both relevant and actionable, facilitating more targeted
Webinar with Forrester: Scaling KAM Best Practices: Engineering Repeatability for Revenue Expansion
Recent economic headwinds have spurred organizations to rethink key account management (KAM). B2B companies are keen on swapping hit-or-miss approaches with repeatable processes that guarantee retention and growth. The wedge in this pursuit? Static plans and lack of clarity on how to standardize best practices across their key accounts. A ~27% increase in cross-sell and upsell opportunities isn’t far-fetched if you know how to standardize key account planning best practices at scale. In our webinar featuring Forrester Analyst Steve Silver on Mar 28, we discuss: 1. A definitive road map for implementing key account management (KAM) best practices. 2. What should your ideal KAM tool look like? 3. If you are just beginning your KAM journey, what best practices should you spend time on? 4. How long should your KAM implementation go on for? (See a real-world case study from our recent implementation) 5. What short, mid and long term metrics should you be tracking as a best practice? Watch the webinar on-demand:
The Power of Relationship Intelligence in Opportunity Management for Strategic Deals
Strategic deals can be seen as a team sport, much like a relay race where each member must sprint in a carefully coordinated fashion to ensure the team’s victory. An integral element of teamwork is a unified platform that keeps everyone on the same page. Several companies are adopting strategies such as opportunity management to manage the sales pipeline at every stage which involves identifying, tracking, and managing potential sales opportunities. Strategic planning, data analysis, and relationship-building are some of the important tools to choose the best opportunities to pursue. No organization can afford to have scattered deal information that can lead to wasted hours and miscommunication. Relationship intelligence can be the most powerful tool in the process of opportunity management that enhances efficiency and improves collaboration by creating automated processes to view, analyze, and implement all relevant information. Read More: Complete Guide on Sales Methodologies to Win Large Deals The Growing Relevance of Relationship Intelligence Key account relationship intelligence is much more than the information and data about your contacts and extends beyond phone numbers, job titles, and pain points. It’s an invaluable repository of the timeline of client interactions, their budgets, and their choice of service or product. Relationship intelligence also includes gauging client sentiment in order to truly understand the nature of your business relationships. An efficient relationship mapping software platform will capture and extract information about all your contacts, analyze it, and share intelligent insights to manage those business relations. It goes beyond traditional customer relationship management software and interprets disparate data to enable better business decisions. In any strategic deal, ‘opportunity’ is the stage between spotting a lead and actually closing your deal. It’s crucial and your sales team must put their best foot forward to introduce your product and convince your prospect to close the deal. Even before they interact with different stakeholders, your team must be armed with a unified plan and must have access to all relevant information. Let’s look at how tapping into relationship management can enable better opportunity management for strategic deals: 5 Benefits of Tapping into Relationship Intelligence in Opportunity Management for Strategic Deals 1. Keeps everyone in the loop It’s convenient for any team, large or small, to track key deals when the relevant information is visible at a glance and everyone is on the same page. With the help of relationship intelligence, you can leverage tools that keep everyone on the same page through automation and extensions that support existing workflows. These tools also offer certain advanced filters to help you discover opportunities by setting specific criteria. This can enable your team to take the necessary steps to fast-track these prospects in the sales pipeline. You can also maintain a record of all your sales collaterals in a centralized repository. Members of your sales team can access and edit these documents that are available to anyone who might need them. Relationship intelligence platforms not only store important information but they go a step further by monitoring and analyzing the data fed into them to provide useful insights. These contextual inputs provided by AI-powered tools assist sales professionals in spotting opportunities and creating more meaningful interactions with customers. 2. Improves communication and collaboration A complex and multi-tiered process, sales requires careful coordination and collaboration between several teams and stakeholders. From refining sales pitches to making the final offer, it takes the collective efforts of many to successfully close deals. Relationship intelligence provides efficient tools that can be integrated with built-in live chat systems. They provide an efficient platform for your team to align their sales activities, share updates, and celebrate wins. Relationship intelligence expedites and automates many key but repetitive tasks for sales teams and customer managers. This considerably reduces their administrative workload leaving them free to focus on revenue-generating activities. In fact, by using relationship intelligence, every update in the team’s deal view can be automated, transforming the Monday meeting and making the deal progress more efficiently. Your team can also divert their time and energy to formulate sales strategies and create a transparent ecosystem where open communication thrives. 3. Provides automated deal and pipeline insights One of the key features and benefits of relationship intelligence solutions is their use of the latest innovations such as Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) that can automate many functions and enhance your team’s efficiency. AI tools can slice and dice your sales data to spot trends that can help you forecast future sales opportunities. With automated deal and pipeline insights, your team is in a better position to score more leads. AI-powered tools can also help your team decode data like industry, company size, and budget to design bespoke communication for leads. Analyzing historical data can be particularly useful to make predictions about future performance. With these informed learnings, you will be setting more realistic targets and smartly allocating resources, thereby optimizing the pipeline management process. Data visualization enables sales teams to have a clear vision of their networks, clients and stakeholders by breaking down sales data and identifying relevant trends and patterns. With the help of automated pipeline insights, your team can also efficiently conduct partner reviews and LP reporting. Relationship intelligence gives your leadership a 360° view of the entire strategic account management process by helping them understand engagement with clients, tracking the flow of communication between relevant stakeholders, and mapping the influence and power of client contacts. 4. Betters Deal Closure Time and RatesIn the sales realm, it’s highly unlikely that all deals will go through and all leads or prospects will convert. There could be a sizable number of engaged buyers who did not close the deal the first time and offer a chance for conversion the second time. Over a period of time, their business priorities can change and you may be able to win them over. Relationship intelligence can help you identify the most engaged buyers and help you reestablish a rapport with them. By identifying process blockers and trends that lead to lost deals,
8 Steps of Sales Opportunity Planning
Sales opportunity planning is a complex process that entails following several steps and requires a comprehensive guide. It’s built around a multi-step sales cycle with several stages that include research, qualification, and strategy development. All these stages are aligned to meet the common goal of realizing the full potential of a prospective sales opportunity. The success and future of any sales organization hinge on the cohesive planning and execution of each step, that is collectively known as sales opportunity management. The best and most effective sales opportunity plans are created and aligned around creating value for the buyer. It also enables managers and sales teams strategize, plan, execute, and monitor a multistage sales process. Compared to managing a sales pipeline where metrics like revenue and margin take center stage, opportunity planning is a more complex process that is planned and executed around the customer. To understand the different facets and layers of this strategy, let’s look at the 8 steps of sales opportunity planning. 8 Steps of Sales Opportunity Planning Step 1: Identifying the Opportunity The journey starts with identifying the sales opportunity that is nothing else but a qualified sales lead. By meeting the necessary criteria, this lead presents the opportunity for business potential. You need to ask yourself some pertinent questions in order to identify valuable sales opportunities, such as: Are your existing customers seeking existing services or products that your competitors are not able to provide? Are there any new services or products that you can provide and gain market traction? Are there any customers that you may have not considered that are now available to you? This process plays an important role in qualifying leads and sifting opportunities from dead ends. After identifying a set of opportunities, you can rank them on the basis of cost, potential benefit and complexity to implement. Tools such as organizational charts and product roadmaps can play an important role in prospecting and lead generation. They help you to decode the prospect’s organizational structure and identify key decision-makers and stakeholders. In fact, product roadmaps are a great asset for sales teams to understand a product’s future capabilities and how they can match with the prospect’s needs. Learn More: How to do Opportunity Management in Salesforce CRM Step 2: Understanding the Prospect’s Needs The buyer is the kingpin of the planning sales opportunities and the success of any plan hinges on understanding the prospect’s needs. Sellers must invest all time and energy into this crucial stage by meticulously researching the prospect’s pain points and goals. One way to identify opportunities for value creation is by conducting thorough customer discovery interviews. To gain a clear view of available opportunities, you must document the history with your customer and add possible future ones to the list. Sales teams must invest in tools such as customer strategy maps to align their objectives and initiatives match with capabilities of the solution they are offering. These maps are a repository of the culture of customer organizations, their goals and possible challenges. With this vital information, your sales force can identify potential areas where you can provide value that boosts the customer’s plans. Learn More: What are White Space Opportunities? Step 3: Building the Sales Team The next step in sales opportunity planning is to assess your organization for the business capabilities required to go after the opportunity. This crucial stage involves assembling a cross-functional sales team with the right skills and expertise. Roles and responsibilities must be clearly defined within the team and equally important is to ensure clear communication and collaboration among team members. Apart from tracking the activities of your sales team, keep your ear close to the ground to gain insights from other team members. Innovative ideas and solutions may come from their personal insights into potential value for the buyer. A valuable or crucial tip may change the game and help sales teams close a sale, or resolve a difficult issue. Step 4: Crafting the Value Proposition Once you have a clear understanding of the buyer’s needs and your team is in place, you can focus on crafting your solution and building the value case. At this stage, it’s important to create a compelling value proposition that is tailored to the prospect and addresses the prospect’s specific needs and pain points. Another aspect of crafting the value proposition is showcasing the unique selling points and benefits. Ideally, each component of your proposition should be linked to the value it provides for the buyer. These points will help you appeal to the buyer’s needs and create effective value messaging. Another important point to consider at this stage is how you compare with the competition from the buyer’s perspective. Understanding the buyer’s view of your competition will help you create a value proposition that highlights your strengths. Moreover, this value proposition can also cater to buyers that are not serviced well by your competition. Your value proposition can appeal to those needs the buyers that the competition does not service. Step 5: Creating a Customized Sales Strategy We have crossed the half-way mark of the sales opportunity plan and now is the time to develop a detailed sales plan, including timelines and milestones. You need to know the buyer’s buying process and match it to your sales process to create a customized sales strategy. It’s important to gather all valuable insights your team can contribute to formulating a winning sales strategy. Based on their success with customers, sales winners are likely propose winning ideas and also alert you about what does not work. By incorporating insights and inputs, you can create a customized sales strategy to meet specific goals and objectives. Formulating a sales strategy also entails anticipating objections and challenges and preparing response strategies for each. The final action plan must map out the steps you need to take during the entire process to close the sale. Step 6: Presenting the Solution Strategies Planning a winning strategy is one thing but presenting a
Maximizing Customer Retention: The Role of Key Account Management in Customer Success Management
In the business world, customer success management is no longer an afterthought; it’s a necessity. Consensus across research confirms: retaining existing customers costs 5 to 25 times less than acquiring new ones. But businesses are realizing that it goes beyond keeping customers satisfied; it’s about truly understanding their needs and delivering value at every touchpoint. The rise of the digital era has changed the rules of the game. Complex products, multifaceted needs, and fierce competition have become the norm. In this context, a one-size-fits-all approach no longer works. Success lies in a tailored, strategic approach to customer success management. One that leverages Key Account Management (KAM) principles to retain customers and transform them into brand advocates. KAM principles encompass fostering robust relationships, tailoring solutions, maintaining consistent communication, prioritizing the long term, and constantly reviewing and adapting strategies. This journey requires a keen understanding of your customers, insightful data, and a commitment to going the extra mile. And it’s a journey that pays off in spades. Read More: What is Customer Centricity and Why it isn’t the destination? The Changing Role of Customer Success Managers / CSMs in a Technological World “This season is an opportunity for the CSM to shine.” (From episode #9 of The Shift podcast). In today’s ever-competitive business environment, customers expect consistent value and support. Customer Success Managers (CSMs) play an indispensable role in ensuring this. But their role goes beyond just implementation or ensuring customer satisfaction or customer retention. The changes? Multi-faceted roles – serving as advocates, advisors and educators. Guide customers through complex technical platforms and maximize value Ensure smooth adoption of products or services CSMs are often tasked with understanding intricate technical platforms and ensuring that customers can effectively utilize them. The platforms they deal with can vary from sophisticated data analytics tools to advanced customer relationship management systems. However, despite technological challenges, CSMs are the ones who ensure that these tools deliver value to customers. Learn More: Best Customer Segmentation Strategies for Customer Success Teams Strategies for Sales Growth with Existing Customers: Avoiding Pitfalls Organizations often fall into common traps when trying to drive sales growth with existing customers. Sherrod Patching, VP – Customer Success, GitLab, highlights a typical pitfall: an overemphasis on feature-function discussions. She says, “… it’s easy to just pivot to feature function. (But) ensure you understand how these features and functions that they’re so excited about are going to lead them to business outcomes and ensure they’re on the right path.” (Snippets from episode #9 of The Shift podcast). Particularly for products with high release cycles, it’s not about turning on features for the sake of it. It’s about highlighting those that bring customers closer to desired outcomes, like faster development times or increased efficiencies. Other common mistakes to avoid: Overlooking customer segmentation: Different customers have unique needs. 73% of customers expect companies to understand and 62% expect companies to anticipate these needs. Ignoring customer segmentation can hinder the ability to engage effectively and tailor offerings. Neglecting relationship building: Building trust and rapport with customers is essential. It’s not just about the bottom line; it’s about fostering long-term relationships. These relationships can bring on upselling and cross-selling opportunities. A McKinsey study reported that upselling and cross-selling can increase marketing ROI by nearly 30% and overall sales by approximately 20%. While results could vary by business, sector and service, the bottom line is sales performance can increase even with existing clients. Ignoring customer feedback: Failing to act on customer feedback means missing opportunities to delight customers by improving current offerings and developing new, relevant ones. Shockingly, just over 20% of B2B companies consistently measure and act on insights from customer experience. By sidestepping these mistakes, organizations can build lasting relationships, optimize sales growth strategies and drive long-term success. Emerging Trends in Customer Success Management Several trends are reshaping how customer success management is viewed. One significant trend is Account-Based Marketing (ABM). This targeted approach allows customer success teams to tailor their efforts and resources towards those customers that are most likely to succeed. Another emerging trend is the growing emphasis on social selling. By leveraging social media, customer success teams can connect with potential customers, build relationships, and promote their offerings. There is a noticeable shift towards proactive engagement. Rather than waiting for customers to reach out, customer success managers actively engage them, offering content, support and offers tailored to their needs. Customer education and empowerment are also gaining traction. Customer success teams are investing heavily in webinars, tutorials and other resources that help customers fully understand the features of offerings. This focus on education allows customers to get the most out of the product or service. Lastly, customer journey mapping is a crucial tool for customer success teams. By understanding the customer’s entire journey, from the first contract and through the relationship, customer success teams can identify opportunities to improve the customer experience. “This seamless experience for the customer, that’s shared with the customer, that’s documented in systems, that then carries through, becomes a continuation of a single journey.” (Snippets from episode #9 of The Shift podcast). These trends highlight the increasing complexity of customer success management and the need for innovative strategies to meet customer needs and drive continuous improvements. Addressing Challenges in Account Planning and Governance Organizations frequently struggle with account planning and governance – a crucial process that requires strategic plans for customer account management. Challenges often arise due to misalignment among teams, lack of customer insights, poor communication, focus on short-term goals and inadequate resources. Masterclass by Forrester Principal Analyst Anthony McPartlin: Why companies fail with key account management? There is a need for a cohesive approach to account planning. Account planning by the Sales team and success planning by the Customer Success team needs to be aligned. Many organizations treat these as separate processes, resulting in siloed approaches. However, ensuring that account plans and success plans operate in tandem is vital. “But those two need to go hand in hand. What you want
Streamlining the Sales Experience in Digital Key Account Management
In traditional sales operations, we have primarily focused on maintaining a healthy sales funnel, achieving high average win rates, and maintaining deal sizes. However, over the past decade, the selling process has undergone a complete transformation. We have transitioned to cloud-based and software selling models, shifting our focus to the customer’s product experience. In this context, Revenue Operations (RevOps) has emerged as a pivotal strategy that aims to align sales, marketing, and customer success throughout the customer journey. The goal is to break down traditional silos and establish a more consistent approach to enhancing the customer experience. The seamless integration of digital tools into the sales process has resulted in a more efficient and effective sales experience for both buyers and sellers. Digital transformation has opened up new possibilities for businesses, enabling them to deliver a seamless sales experience by streamlining processes, providing real-time data, and offering actionable insights. The RevOps team also collects, shares, and utilizes data to gain actionable insights that help teams make data-backed decisions. “Contrary to popular opinion, Revenue Operations is not a fancy term for Sales Operations. We need to take a more expansive view of RevOps as a whole. There are a lot more people involved in the revenue generation activity such as the customer subscription manager, and renewal manager to ensure that the customer adopts the product and is seamlessly engaged. RevOps includes everything from marketing operations to sales operations to customer success operations that are part of a larger ecosystem that works with the aim of providing a unique and engaging customer experience.”- Prasad Varahabhatla, Senior Director, Sales & Data Operations, Philips (Snippets from episode #8 of the Shift podcast) Sales teams can bank on AI-powered tools and data analytics to gain insights into their key accounts, identify new opportunities, and make more informed strategic decisions. The integration of digital tools and platforms has also created a more agile and adaptable approach to key account management, enabling swift adaptation to evolving market conditions, consumer expectations, and technological advancements. Benefits of Integrating Digital Tools into Sales Gain insights into key accounts Identify fresh opportunities Deliver a seamless sales experience Create an agile approach to Key Account Management According to Gartner, by 2025, 75% of the highest-growth companies in the world will implement the RevOps model. Moving forward, data will play a pivotal role in the success of any revenue operations strategy. By collecting, harnessing, and utilizing data, RevOps aims to foster even better synergy between marketing, sales, and success teams, ultimately leading to improved customer experiences. Sales Automation with AI to Optimize Customer Experience With the growing influence of RevOps and data-backed analytics, traditional strategies for one-off purchases are becoming redundant. Companies now focus on the entire customer journey and enhanced customer engagement to drive recurring revenues. The emphasis is on leveraging technological innovations, including artificial intelligence (AI), to automate workflows and achieve higher efficiencies. According to cross-functional research by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) technology can automate over 30% of sales and sales operations tasks. The most popular sales automation tools that harness AI include virtual assistants, chatbots, email, and appointment automation. Revolutionizing Sales with RevOps Align sales, marketing & customer success across the customer journey Break outdated siloed structures Enhance customer experience with consistency Leverage data to make strategic decisions From a skillset perspective, different teams that make RevOps need to be more curious and understand dependencies or processes that are dependent on them. They must possess a broader comprehension of the customer lifecycle and identify ways to eliminate friction from the customer experience. “We focus so much on the book or the process, we forget that these processes are there for a purpose which is to ease the way our customer or salesperson experiences the entire process. There’s a need for digital technology to automate non-value-added manual tasks and develop a level of transparency and seamlessness in the way the sales team or customer experiences our delivery.” – Prasad Varahabhatla, Senior Director, Sales & Data Operations, Philips (Snippets from episode #8 of the Shift podcast) Customer Adoption and Long-term Value Creation To boost revenue, cultivating long-term engagement with customers is essential. Achieving this requires consistent reminders of your product’s value and sustained value creation. The responsibility falls on the customer success manager to showcase the product’s features and benefits and how they add value to the customer. Customer value creation is integral to any business strategy and is increasingly driven by data-enabled insights and AI-powered tools. The adoption of digital tools allows you to comprehend evolving consumer needs and tailor your offerings accordingly. Depending on customer needs, systems must constantly evolve while ensuring the structures remain modular and scalable. Institutionalizing systems must be planned out in such a way that just a few tweaks can accommodate new features without having to make fundamental architectural shifts. The consumer and market constantly commands changes, and when that happens you must be ready with the right structures, technology, and solution architecture. Adopting a digital-first mindset is the initial step in streamlining the customer experience. “It’s not even a matter of choice anymore and the assumption that digital transformation is a choice is a joke. If digital transformation is implemented by a company and it doesn’t fundamentally change the job content of the people involved in that process, then we are doing it all wrong.” – Prasad Varahabhatla, Senior Director, Sales & Data Operations, Philips (Snippets from episode #8 of the Shift podcast) The Future is Digital Information and the power of data can be the deciding factors for the success of Rev Ops and your consumer engagement strategy. If Rev Ops is the machine, data is the fuel that keeps it running. If you can’t track customer data, manage assets, or use this information for future sales, you’ll miss out on opportunities. “RevOps is a relay race and not a 100-meter dash and the most efficient way of implementing this is through digital transformation and data,” – Prasad Varahabhatla, Senior Director, Sales
Quality over Quantity: How Focusing on a Select Few Accounts Can Drive Greater Success in Digital Key Account Management
Quality over Quantity: How Focusing on a Select Few Accounts Can Drive Greater Success in Digital Key Account Management As digital Key Account Management grows in relevance, many organizations find themselves confounded by the question of whether obtaining new customers is more important than retaining existing key clients. While there is merit in acquiring multiple accounts to meet higher revenue targets, less is usually more if you aim to drive greater and lasting success. A winning strategy is built around being selective and choosing quality over quantity. Not all your client accounts are equal and an integral part of strategic account management is identifying accounts that show the potential to grow in size and importance. To stay on track, your team needs to regularly review key accounts to understand the time, resources, and manpower they require and recalibrate strategy. Focusing on a select few accounts is also good for your organization as it leads to long-term growth, higher revenue, and improved brand reputation. Digital Account Management Masterclass by Pawanjeet Singh – AVP & Head of Sales at DemandFarm The Pitfalls of Quantity-focused Account Management Many businesses fixate on acquiring new accounts, driven by the belief that more accounts lead to increased earnings. But if you’re obsessed only with numbers, you could be missing the trees for the woods. Quantity-focused account management may work in the short term but usually falters as a long-term strategy. On the contrary, quality accounts offer bigger opportunities to generate revenue for your company. Accounts with high growth potential could also turn into your biggest and most valued partners. Challenges and Limitations of Managing a Large Number of Accounts When you’re focused on quantity, you’re constantly vying to get as many accounts as possible, without giving much thought to quality. This could mean a waste of time, energy, and resources on following up on prospects that will do little good for your brand. Another downside of focusing on a large number of accounts is the reduced efficiency of your KAM managers. If a majority of your accounts are classified as strategic, you run the risk of spreading your resources too thin. A compromise in resources usually impacts the quality of your team’s output and is likely to leave your clients dissatisfied and even disgruntled. Dilution of Resources and Attention Strategic account management works when the engagement with each account is consistent and meets a high benchmark of quality. KAM managers are required to pay close attention to the needs of each account and allocate enough time and resources to manage them well. However, when you focus on quantity, you end up burdening your account managers with more clients than they can handle. This often leads to a lack of attention and personalization that can hamper your relationship with key clients. Lack of Personalization and Tailored Strategies Even as you classify and tag your accounts in different categories, it’s important to remember that you are dealing with people. They include buyers, managers, and senior decision-makers. Understanding each person in this equation is essential to meet the account’s goals and requirements. As a part of the KAM strategy, you need to be nuanced and develop customized solutions to provide greater value. A large number of KAM accounts may come in the way of this tailored approach that is essential to building enduring partnerships. Potential Loss of Focus on High-Value Accounts You may start client engagement with great enthusiasm, but the burden of multiple accounts is likely to bog you down and lead to inconsistencies. High-value accounts require a focused approach and any loss of focus can result in strained relationships. An important relationship built over time can crumble due to a scattered approach and this could mean not just loss of revenue but can seriously dampen your reputation and image. The Benefits of Quality-focused Account Management By choosing quality-focused account management, you invest in long-term relationships resulting in consistent growth for your clients as well as your organization. With a focus on quality over quantity, your efforts will be concentrated on accounts with the highest lifetime value. You will also build a stronger team that invests their effort and energy in cultivating relationships that help your company’s bottom line. Enhanced Customer Relationships and Trust When you prioritize quality, you are actually prioritizing the needs of the customer. This approach leads to enhanced trust in customer relationships and raises client satisfaction. Once your key clients feel valued, you can be assured of their loyalty and reliance. With a quality-centric approach, your clients turn into your brand advocates and endorse your services in the public domain. These clients are likely to share their positive experiences with their friends and colleagues and recommend your brand. Deeper Understanding of Customer Needs and Objectives Understanding your customers is crucial at all stages of strategic account management. AI tools can efficiently drive customer profiling and facilitate a deeper understanding of prospects. Data is analyzed from sources like CRM systems, website interactions, and social media to arrive at a deeper understanding of your customers, needs and goals. These insights also help you visualize the customer’s pain points, preferences, and buying behaviors. Customized Solutions and Value-added Services With precise customer profiling, your team can create personalized strategies that appeal to your select audience. A quality-focused approach also supports innovation as it motivates you to constantly push the envelope and come up with creative solutions. This mindset gives you a competitive edge and sets you apart from your rivals. AI-powered tools can help you mine data connected to customer interactions and past purchases. Based on insights derived from this data, AI can customize solutions and create value-added services for your select accounts. Increased Revenue Potential and Long-term Partnership Opportunities Focusing on quality in digital Key Account Management leads to better ROI from your strategies, as your efforts and resources are aligned towards finding and retaining your most promising accounts. This is also the best way to know your audience better and deliver more targeted Key
The 30-60-90-Day Blueprint: Your Path to Key Account Success
Powering Progress: The 30-60-90-Day Blueprint Plan for Key Account Excellence The 30-60-90-Day Blueprint: Your Path to Key Account Success Your Guide to Key Account Management Excellence. Learn how the 30-60-90-Day Blueprint powers progress, fostering sustainable business growth. In the world of B2B sales, success is all about relationships. The most important of these relationships is with your key accounts. That is the customers who have the potential to generate the most revenue for your business. By building and managing long-term relationships with your key accounts, you can create a foundation for sustainable growth. The 30-60-90-Day Blueprint is a time-bound, comprehensive approach to Key Account Management. It breaks down your first 90 days into three phases: The 30-day phase: You actively engage in learning and comprehending the intricacies of your key accounts. During this period, you diligently gather essential information about their businesses, goals, and challenges, establishing a strong foundation for your future interactions. The 60-day phase: The focus shifts towards building robust relationships and delivering exceptional value. To achieve this, you strategically devise and execute plans tailored to meet the specific needs of each key account, aiming not only to meet but also exceed their expectations. The 90-day phase: Your efforts are geared towards cementing and solidifying these newly formed relationships. It is crucial to continue delivering value consistently, ensuring that your key accounts remain content and satisfied. This stage sets the groundwork for long-term success and opens the doors to further growth and opportunities. Through sustained dedication and customer-centricity, you position yourself as a trusted partner for your key accounts, fostering enduring relationships that propel mutual prosperity. Understanding the 30-60-90-Day Blueprint The 30-60-90-Day Blueprint is your trusted roadmap in Key Account Management, guiding your journey with strategic precision. This game plan operates on understanding, delivering value, and building strong relationships, gradually leading to long-term success. By breaking down KAM into manageable stages, it eliminates guesswork and empowers you with a clear vision, focusing your efforts on specific goals while optimizing resource utilization. As a catalyst for progress, each stage builds upon the previous, ensuring continuous growth. With a keen understanding of your key accounts, you can effectively cater to their needs, consistently deliver value, and forge powerful strategic relationships. Follow the proven path of the 30-60-90-Day Blueprint to unlock the full potential of your key accounts, driving increased revenue, heightened customer satisfaction, and strengthened relationships. The First 30 Days: Building a Strong Foundation The first 30 days of the 30-60-90-Day Blueprint are all about getting to know your key accounts. Knowledge is power, and in this phase, the spotlight is on in-depth research and analysis. Gather information about their businesses, their goals, their challenges, and their expectations. This information will help you understand your key accounts’ needs and how best you can meet them. You’ll also start to build relationships with your key accounts. This means communicating with them regularly and listening to their needs. It also means being responsive to their requests and going the extra mile to help them succeed. Through effective communication, you understand the nuances of your clients’ needs – giving you an edge in offering them precisely what they need. With a solid understanding and clear objectives, you can craft an actionable plan. This roadmap outlines the steps you’ll take to meet and exceed your clients’ expectations, making the first stride towards a mutually beneficial relationship. By the end of the first 30 days, you’ll have a solid understanding of your key accounts and their needs. You’ll also have started to build strong relationships with them. This will put you in a great position to deliver value and achieve mutually beneficial results. The Next 60 Days: Driving Growth and Value The second stage of the blueprint, spanning the next 60 days, moves the lens from understanding to action. With deep insight into your key accounts’ needs and goals, you’re well-positioned to deliver value and drive growth. The first step in this next phase is developing a customized account strategy. This plan, tailored to your key account’s needs, will outline how you will enhance engagement, identify growth avenues, and drive account expansion. Your strategy must be flexible, allowing for modifications based on evolving needs and market dynamics. An important aspect of this phase involves exploring opportunities for upselling and cross-selling. By aligning these opportunities with your clients’ needs, you could find additional revenue streams, while simultaneously providing more value to your clients. Collaboration is essential during this phase. Cross-functional teams within your organization can provide unique insights and skills. This ensures a holistic approach to Key Account Management. By pooling resources and harnessing internal expertise, you create a synergy that amplifies the value delivered to your key accounts. Project monitoring should not be ignored. Regularly assess your strategy’s effectiveness, identify potential gaps and adjust as required. This cyclical process helps you stay in sync with your key accounts’ expectations. You can thus ensure that your efforts are on the right track. By the end of the second phase, you’ll have implemented targeted strategies, driven significant growth, and created tangible value for your key accounts. This places you in a strong position to solidify your relationships and lay the foundation for long-term success. The Final 90 Days: Solidifying Success and Expanding Relationships The final phase of the 30-60-90-Day Blueprint is about consolidating your success and laying the groundwork for future growth. It’s in this phase that your efforts bear fruit. You will concentrate on cementing the relationships you’ve built and continuously delivering value to your key accounts. Your primary task is to deliver on promises made and meet client expectations. The emphasis is on maintaining the high bar of performance you’ve set. But you also need to be consistent in the quality of service you provide. Your ability to meet and surpass expectations will bolster your clients’ confidence in your partnership, and drive their loyalty and satisfaction. However, it doesn’t stop there. This final phase calls for the provision of continuous value-added solutions. This involves
