Increase Customer Satisfaction with Strategic Key Account Planning
Published: April 21, 2010
Sarah Weldon
Most large organizations have a set of customers they characterize as key accounts. Because these key accounts often produce a large share of sales revenue for a company, it’s critical to develop excellent relationships with them. Effective key account management requires having a strategy that enables you to understand the needs of these customers so you can serve them better. One critical tool for accomplishing this is a strategic account plan.
Strategic account plans benefit a utility’s account management group as well as its key account customers. Yet, only slightly more than half of the 29 utilities surveyed in the E Source 2009 Account Management Assessment create customized strategic plans for key account customers. Strategic account planning is the overall best way to keep track of your customers’ wants, needs, and preferences, which ultimately allows you to build rapport, develop trust, and provide optimum value to your most important business customers.
Take, for example, the experiences of a large utility in the western U.S. The utility had been participating in a nationwide customer satisfaction survey of commercial and industrial customers for nearly 20 years. After ranking in the bottom third of the largest U.S. utilities, the utility jumped to the top 10 when it started focusing its strategic planning process on what the utility would do for the customer. The utility vaulted to No. 1 after incorporating flexibility into its strategic plans and expanding the scope of the plans from listing a few basic goals to including specific agenda items and goals.
Strategic plans put all of your knowledge about a key account business customer into a single document that can be used for planning and meeting with customers. The plans can also incorporate the utility’s goals at the corporate or account management department level as well as any regulatory or legislative goals the utility is required to meet. E Source considers it a best practice to create individual strategic account plans for each key account customer, but you may want to start with just your top 10 to 25 accounts to get the ball rolling. An effective strategic account plan includes:
- All of the basic information about the customer such as budget cycle and key drivers for decision-making
- Pertinent historical information, such as demand and energy output
- Identification of all members of the utility team who are responsible for serving the customer (to be shared with the customer)
- Strategic plans for the customer for areas such as customer service, communications, and energy reliability
- The market potential for utility products and programs, along with strategies for promoting them (for internal use only)
- A summary of what the customer can expect from the utility and what the utility can expect from the customer in return (to be shared with the customer)
This document can be used to align customers’ expectations with the account representatives’ action plan. We recommend creating these plans annually in collaboration with customers, or at least sharing the plans with customers.
E Source has created several resources for utilities that can help with the development of a key account plan (available to members of the E Source Business Market Service). They include an E Source Key Account Plan Template and instructions for using it, a best practice report on Strategic Planning for Key Accounts, and a Fantasy Account Management Department report describing best practices in the areas of account management department structure and strategy. We also offer customer communications for businesses of all sizes. |
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About the Author
Sarah Weldon
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, E SOURCE
Sarah Weldon is a research associate at E Source, focusing primarily on issues related to utility customer care, business account management, the customer-facing side of intelligent grid, and e-business. Sarah researches and responds to Member Inquiries and does research and writing for reports on hot-topic issues in these areas. She has an extensive background in customer service and management and has also worked as a high-definition editor and videographer. |
