For most organizations and sales professionals, the “80/20 Rule” holds
true. The majority of their revenues come from a small percentage of
customers. Ensuring the continued loyalty of these accounts is a priority
and requires collaboration across the entire organization.
Reading the Warning Signs
Most experts place the cost of acquiring a new customer between 4 and
10X the cost of maintaining an existing one. For many organizations,
it’s not so much the cost of replacing the business that keeps executives
up at night as it is the sudden and lasting drop in revenues. In complex
business-to-business selling, sales cycles can easily last several months.
Not all companies can withstand the financial strain of losing a strategic
customer.
Even if the account isn’t seen as “strategic” to the organization, it might
be critical to an individual salesperson. When a customer suddenly defects, it can take months to recoup the loss – time the sales
professional may not have in today’s competitive sales environments.
But do these customers really leave without giving off signals? Joe Galvin, Miller Heiman’s Chief Research Officer, doesn’t think so.
“Maintaining and growing strategic accounts requires reading the warning signs. However, these signs can be easy to miss if the sales
professional lacks visibility into what’s happening at all levels of the organization.”
Now We’re Talking
There are often numerous touchpoints within strategic accounts. Executives, product and industry specialists, customer support,
consulting, accounting personnel: The strategic account is going to have at least one relationship within almost every department.
Each of these contacts has the potential to spot red flags and opportunities that the sales professional focused on the C-suite is likely
to miss.
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