On the 3rd day of Christmas my largest customer said to me “we need to explore a more formalised relationship”.

A call or note like this from a customer who provides a significant amount of your company’s revenue can often be met with dread! However, it could indicate something really positive.

If you have been pulling the right relationship levers and triggers, then a heightened level of interdependence, trust and mutual commercial benefit will develop.

Customers will also be looking at where they can realise long term value and which trusted partners are able to deliver it. If you fit into that profile then the development of a more formalised relationship is inevitable and to be welcomed.

A pro-active account team will sieze the oportunity to develop the depth of relationship and steer it into strategic partnership.

This will involve greater levels of joint planning, co-creation, joint action and mutual investment, so be warned and be ready.

Would you like to know how you could respond should such a call come in after Christmas? If so, then drop us a line.

Find out more about our approach to Key Account Management here.

Get in touch with Mark Hollyoake, FMCG & Key Account Management Specialist & Director
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Or email us at: hello@customerattuned.com

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Dr Mark Hollyoake

Mark is a co-founder and Director of Customer Attuned Ltd. He holds a Doctorate from the University ofSouthampton, his thesis focused on Trust as a dynamic within business to business customer relationships.

He 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.

Mark's applied work across FMCG, industrials, medical devices, financial services, business services and construction has led to organisations making, significant improvements to their customer management. A large focus of this work has been moving organisations up the Trust Ladder to enable them to benefit from reduced cost to serve, while continuing to innovate and deliver mutual value.

Mark is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and Member of the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management. He holds an MBA in strategy from Henley Business School.

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