12 Days of Xmas #12: my key account said to me “you can sharpen terms on the doves and pear trees”
On the 12th day of Christmas my key account said to me “you can sharpen terms on the doves and pear trees”.
When a lot of your business is controlled or dependent on a few large accounts, it is not hard to find yourself in a position of dependence with key customers and on the wrong end of demands that verge on coercive power.
If managed proactively using key relationship triggers and builders these pressures can be turned round to your advantage.
Over time the relationship develops into inter-dependence with increased levels of trust and mutual commercial benefit.
The demands that used to be part of the common everyday interaction haven’t gone away, however can be managed within a jointly developed approach to mutual value.
Your key account teams are involved within joint business planning, co-creation, co-delivered cost release and co-ordinating cross functional teams that work within the relationship.
Our booklet “The Trust Ladder” explains in detail these levels of inter-dependent relationship based on trust – you can download it for free!
Done properly come this time next year you could also be delivering the pear tree, doves, maids, geese, hens and golden rings – and celebrate successes like leaping lords!
Let us know if you found this useful – we would love to hear from you!
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Contact us at hello@customerattuned.com
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
from everyone at Customer Attuned!
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Mark Hollyoake
His is an expert in B2B Customer Experience and Customer Management. This includes CM strategy development; execution of improvement plans (incl. organisational modelling for customer management); programme design; and partnership & alliance development.
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