Account Management

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 for Sales Forces

Account management software empowers you to keep account information consistently up-­to-date, organized, and actionable.

The Importance of Key Account Management Software for Sales Professionals

Account management is a considerable job – ­­and one of the most important for a sales professional. Account management consists of several key functions, which added up actually summate to happy customers.

Contacts

The first key factor is, who are the contacts for that account? What are their roles? How do they relate to each other, in terms of influence for the company and on deals for that company?

Account management software needs to address these points as part of its function. Ideally contacts, their roles and relationships should be visualized for instant understanding.

Pain Points

Any account as it relates to your company and products is going to have its *pain points* – ­­that set of factors that brought them to your door in the first place. A key point of account management is to have a good handle on the pain points for any account, and utilize them in all communication with that account.

Account management software should incorporate the use of pain points­­that is, make them plainly visible so that any sales or marketingMarketing Marketing is the field, set of actions, or practice of making a product or service desirable to a target consumer segment, with the ultimate aim of effecting a purchase. personnel that needs them for understanding of and communication with that account can instantly access them.

Sales Process, Activities and Tasks

The essence of account management is, of course, motion. That account is being moved forward toward the next deal, the next close.

Such motion is divided up into clear steps. Broadly, these would be the steps of your company’s sales process­­ – that precise series of steps that take an opportunity (account) from 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. all the way to close. Ideally, account management software would have your company’s sales process expressed visually in the pipelinePipeline Sales pipelineis a visual representation of the stage prospects are in the sales process. form, showing where all deals stand in which stages.

Within each sales process stage, there are various activities and tasks which must be performed to move that opportunity through that stage and into the next. Such tasks and activities are often written up or recorded as best practices for a sales organizationOrganization Organization is a cohesive group of people working together and formally bound by a shared identity (e.g., one team, company, club, etc.) and a common purpose (e.g., business growth, athletic victory, etc.)..

Ideally, account management software visually expresses both its sales process, and the tasks and activities that make up each sales process stage. In doing so nothing is left to the imagination­­ – sales reps whether seasoned or green know where to go and what to do next to move that sale along.

Relationship Mapping

Another very advisable task for any sales force is to have a ready system of relationship mapping as part of account management. This mapping can be expressed in two ways:

1. As an org chart, that shows the hierarchy of your prospect company, and their roles as it relates to buying decisions and the buying cycle.
2. As a buying center—a visual interpretation of all the people involved with an account, and their relationships to and influence upon each other.