#014 KAM and COVID, One Year On

KAMCast - Key Account Management Strategies for Business Leaders

IN THIS EPISODE...

How has the last 12 months been for you and your business?

At the time of recording this episode, it’s been a year… to the day that I delivered my last ‘in person’ seminar for a group of Chief Executives in Leeds.

By then, we had already stopped shaking hands with people and we were pouring copious amounts of antibacterial gel over our hands at every opportunity.

We were beginning to come to terms with the idea that we would likely need to ‘hibernate’ in a home working environment for a few weeks while it all ‘blew over’. Little did we know that as we watched on as other parts of the world plunged into draconian lockdowns, we were only at the beginning of what would turn out to be a very strange time to be alive and a hard time to be in business.

Wherever you are in the world and whatever the last 12 months has been like for you, I’ve no doubt it will have been a rollercoaster of emotions and adaptation as we settled in to a ‘new normal’ whilst constantly asking ourselves what the ‘next normal’ was likely to be like.

Compassion and empathy have been the currency in many of our client relationships and we have all become well versed in the ways of asking ‘how are you?’… ‘no, how are you really?’

In this episode, I wanted to look at what we’ve seen in our KAM practices in the last 12 months. What have you noticed in your client relationships? How have you adapted your communications styles and contact frequencies to adapt to the situation?

I wanted to share with you some of my reflections. Some things I’ve seen, some things I have learned and some thoughts on where the ‘next normal may take us’.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODE:

Moving to a virtual world, where even those who hadn’t used video conferencing before, now became Zoom and MS Teams’ experts, took real adjustment for some people.

Let’s face it, for most Key Account Managers, one of the things that keeps us going in our work, is the person-to-person interaction that we get when partnering with important customers. The best ongoing, trusted relationships that we build tend to be accelerated when we have the opportunity to sit down over a coffee, a lunch or even play a round of golf at an away day.

So, the move to working online screamed disaster as we fumbled our way through finding a balance between relationship building and the business agenda.

TWO THINGS I NOTICED:

• At first, the business agenda, for many, went out of the window and the early iteration of the ‘Zoom call’ was primarily a ‘check-in’ and an opportunity to share experiences and see how each other’s businesses were shaping up. (If anything, this was a good opportunity to really connect with clients, from a vulnerable position and fast track the connection you have and the rapport between you.)
• Then it flipped the other way… small talk about the ‘crisis’ was dropped and the business agenda took centre stage. (The pace at which we needed to work accelerated and our diaries were packed with back-to-back video calls and we simply didn’t have time to dwell on the niceties.)

Now is the time to combine the two – ensuring that partnerships in a virtual environment really do cater for the person-to-person connections as well as the business agenda.

Listen to the full episode to hear my specific reflections about your video call behaviour (timestamp around 4mins 45secs)

REGAIN THE WIN:WIN BALANCE

For many, who found themselves worrying about what the future would hold, uncertain about the stability of the business, their industry or their job, they allowed desperation to take hold and started a frantic race to the bottom.

Compassion meant compromising the win:win balance and many organisations started to devalue their time, service and products by giving them away for free, perhaps in a veiled attempt to win the long-term loyalty of the customer.

The thing about something that is free, is that it often lacks a perceived value.. creating the danger that customers will undoubtedly question the price when it’s reintroduced later in the day.

Value-for-free has it’s place in a marketing strategy and, indeed, as an ‘extra mile’ tactic for existing, paying customers. And, at the same time, we need to be careful that we don’t obliterate the value for money offers and services that need to remain a staple in our product suite.

A key account relationship needs to be WIN:WIN to retain and maintain repeat business.

In this episode I ask you some critical questions around what you have done to perhaps create an imbalance in your WIN:WIN scale. (Timestamp: 8:20)

ASK THE TOP 3 FEEDBACK QUESTIONS

(timestamp 8:56)

How have you proactively sought feedback from your key customers on how you have performed against their expectations in the last 12 months?

We need to really get a handle on what the perceptions, feelings and thoughts of our clients are and ask them the three big feedback questions:

• Where are we meeting your expectations>?
• Where are we exceeding your expectations? And
• Where are we falling short of your expectations?

Quite often the answers are often littered with assumptions and guesswork and tainted with our own perspective and what WE would expect if we were the client.

In a key account partnership, we want customers to feel comfortable telling us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so that we can really understand how the customer perceives us, our business and our team.

I give you three questions that you also need to ask YOURSELF (and your team) – listen for all the detail (Timestamp 11:26)

HOW DO WE GO FORWARD FROM COVID?

I talk about some of the frustrations, challenges and fatigue many businesses have experienced in the last 12 months and then ask:

• Looking at the pandemic now, as we start Q2 of 2021, what opportunities do you see, as a result of COVID?
• How is today’s version of normal affecting the way you engage with your important customers?
• What will the NEXT version of normal be for your business and are you prepared for it?

I’d encourage you take some time and reflect on some of the questions and hit the pause button on your busyness, to think about your business.

The juggle struggle has been real and balancing work, family, home-schooling, friendships and our own mental health has often felt like too many things to do!

For many, there have been moments of joy, basking in the glorious sunshine in the spring of 2020, trying to become ‘Tik Tok famous’ and starting lockdown or furlough projects.

And for others, the last 12 months has been incredibly tough, trying to stay optimistic and upbeat in difficult market conditions, knowing that their performance really will determine the survival chances of the business.

Whichever camp you find yourself in, I’d really encourage you to reflect on how the last 12 months with your key customers has been:

• How has your experience affected the value you bring to those partnerships?
• How has their experience affected the value they need from you?
• How do you see the next 12 months in these relationships and what will the ‘next normal’ look like for you, your business and your client engagements?

COMING UP...

In the next episode of KAMCAST, we will be talking to Henry Rose Lee, an Inter-Generational Diversity Expert, and we’ll be digging into the future of work and creating harmony in our client relationships across the generations.