How to attract and retain a key client?

ayshakhatunasha

Before we start working with the concept of a "key client", let's define who it is. First of all, it is a client from whom you expect to receive additional orders in the future. You can consider a client key if you constantly sell them goods or provide them with services. Your key client can be either a huge corporation or your neighbor-entrepreneur. The main thing is constant cooperation.

In order not to mislead yourself and not to build illusory plans, do not call those with whom you have dubious and irregular relations as clients. When we talk about clients from your contact base, we mean those people who really cooperate with you, following a certain trading cycle. Meetings with them are marked on your calendar, you have a connection with them.

Customer acquisition and retention
Find and attract a client
How many calls do you make to find clients each week? How many of these calls will become completed calls, that is, calls that are answered? Probably fewer than the total number of calls made. And how many meetings will take place and how many deals will ultimately be closed? To attract clients, you need to work on the quality of your phone conversations and improve your communication skills.

Would you like to know when to set up a meeting after a phone call? When you need to contact every prospect, of which there are not many. In this case, the "completed calls" rate should be much higher than if you were calling indiscriminately from the phone book.

What actions should be taken in such a situation? First, sales representatives must be creative, polite and, of course, persistent. This means that they must:

a) When the highly paid employee is in his place, contact him only at this time;
b) Constantly call the same person with exceptional tact. You cannot afford to simply forget about this contact. In addition, once you have found the right person, you need to organize the conversation in such a way that this person is immediately interested.

Attracting new key clients
Misconceptions about Key Accounts
Salespeople are usually subject to many virtual phone number service misconceptions that arise from stereotypes. To improve your effectiveness, you must get rid of them. To do this, let's look at some misconceptions about key clients.

1. To close a deal, you need to offer the buyer a big discount. At its core, working with a key account is based on mutual benefit. We achieve repeat business not by lowering prices, but because of our determination to defend our position and define the value of a product or program.
2. There are several people behind every purchasing decision. But sometimes the decision to close repeat business is made by one person - the person authorized to work with us.
3. No budget - no sales. One of the benefits of dealing with a high-profile client is that he can sometimes create an unplanned budget.
4. In order to achieve repeat business, you must have extensive experience in the client's industry and be known in it. In fact, all you need to know is the aspirations of the potential client. Show how your skills match the client's goals to win his trust.
5. You must always start at the headquarters. This is not true. Sometimes the headquarters is not where the purchasing decision is made, because the company's management prefers to be far away from all this.
6. Trust conventional wisdom. My experience shows that everyone who works with key clients actually follows their own personal and erroneous prejudices about their work, believing myths that are specific to their market. I leave this huge list of misconceptions open because you are probably familiar with such common judgments that hinder the development of relationships with important clients.



Who is your most important client?
Try asking yourself the following questions while imagining the company you consider to be your most important key account:
1. When do you plan to have a new meeting with the client?
2. What kind of clients does this company have and what does it do?
3. How long have you been dealing with the company?
4. Who else do you deal with at the company besides your primary contact? Why?
5. Who makes decisions at this company?
6. How much profit will this client bring in over the next two years?
7. What do you think needs to happen to finally get your next order from this company?
8. How and when will you do it?
9. What is the total value of the business in the areas where you could add value?
10. How much of that money is spent on you?
11. How much of that money is spent on competitors?
12. Which competitors and why?
13. Is your primary contact empowered to decide on the next deal? What does he or she think is the next step in this deal?
14. When will this happen?
15. Is the other person as eager to make a deal as you are?

Answering these questions objectively and honestly will give you a true picture of your situation and help you assess your situation. If you are planning to build a long-term relationship with this client without knowing anything about them or thinking about what to do next, you are missing out on the opportunity to make them a valuable client. Work to gather additional information if you find that you do not have a complete picture of your client.

Attracting key clients
Retain the client
Finding and attracting a client is only part of the journey. In the future, you need to retain them.
First, you need to remember that a one-time deal with a client does not ensure complete success.

If 20% of a customer base can affect 80% of a company’s business, why don’t sales reps do anything to prevent those 20% from going to competitors? Think about the potential for a customer to go to a competitor ahead of time. To avoid this, don’t ask new customers questions like “What don’t you like about your supplier?” or “What would you change about your supplier?” Instead, focus on the customer’s business and then gather the necessary information. However, once you have the information you need and close the deal, remember that competitors may ask tricky questions about you. Be quick! Meet with customers and ask your key customers questions about your company. Be bold and ask the customer, “Is there anything you don’t like about the way we work? Is there anything you would like to change about our cooperation?” Then comes the difficult moment when you must shut up and listen to the customer, and solve any problem that competitors may learn about. In this way, you deprive your competitors of the "weapon" that they can use against you, and you retain an important client. Having carried out the prevention of the client's departure to the competitor, we will ask ourselves what influences the development of relations with the client, starting from the lowest level - the seller's level and the path to partnership. What are the driving forces of business relations and what should be paid more attention to in order to accelerate their development.