It’s All About Retention!

How to Build & Expand Deep CustomerCustomer Customer is an individual or an organization that purchases a product or signs up for a service offered by a business. Relationships

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”

Peter Drucker, Management ConsultantPeter Drucker, Management Consultant
How to Build & Expand Deep Customer Relationships

Lack of accountAccount Account refers to a record of primary and background information about an individual or corporate customer, including contact data, preferred services, and transactions with your company. management is in B2BB2B B2B is an acronym for Business-to-Business, a model for selling, relationship-building, or engagement. organizations appears to be a blind spot. In more complex B2B sales, the focus is constantly put on the leadLead Lead refers to a prospect or potential customer (who can be an individual or organization) that exhibits interest in your service or product; or any additional information about such entity. machine, on obtaining new customers, rather than expanding existing relationships.

To expand an account you must continuously create value for your productProduct Product refers to anything (an idea, item, service, process or information) that meets a need or a desire and is offered to a market, usually but not always at a price. or service, for that clientClient A client is an entity who pays another entity for products purchased or services rendered. Also called a customer.. You must research and keep yourself aware of your client’s issues & establish ways in which your product can continue to create value for the client. 

The customer’s relationship has mainly been built with the salesperson. It should be the salesperson who brings additional value to the customer because this continues to strengthen the relationship. Relationships are not partial, split out between various roles—they are holistic.

“Net new sales” usually refers to new customer acquisition, but it should also include cross-sellingCross-selling Cross-selling B2B is when a customer purchases a product and they are offered a second product at a discount or as a reward. and up-selling to existing accounts.

Account Planning Example › the Org Chart

Pipeliner Org Chart or “political map,” shows who is important in a customer company, and who influences whom. We see where the account could be expanded, and where people could if the account was well managed, help sell your product or service into other departments, branches, or the company headquarters.

Account Planning Example › the Sales CRM Org Chart

Enhanced Features Include

  • Color-coding so that you visually show the strength of a relationship: weak, neutral, moderate or strong.

  • Display the nature of that person’s role as it relates to your relationship with them—that person is either a champion for your product or service, a detractor, or a decision-maker.

  • See their LinkedInLinkedIn LinkedIn is a social network for the business community. information, access the feeds for that customer, so you can see what kind of email or other communication you had with them.

  • As with all of our new features, you can dive down from this screen to see the specifics of other information, such as opportunities.

One example of how Pipeliner meets the challenge of Account Management

Pipeliner CRM has updated one of its unique features to a level unheard of in CRM. Our Org Chart is a visual display, tailored by the salesperson, manager, or other users, that shows the hierarchy for a customer company.

It allows the salesperson to stay on track as to who is important to gain the approval of in that company for any deal currently and going forward.

The person or people creating the chart place details of customer company personnel and arrange them to display company hierarchy. As you learn about the customer, new people can be added to it so that the chart always remains current.

One example of how Pipeliner CRM meets the challenge of Account Management

Additional Resources