Account Retention

One of best pieces of advice I ever received about holding on to important clients and customers was this: During times of uncertainty, approach your business contacts from a different perspective than during so-called “normal” times.

The global pandemic has highlighted the need for sales teams to focus appropriate amounts of selling time, effort, and energy on client retention.

Everyone loves a good quiz and the Sandler Research Center has a tricky question for any business leader responsible for customer success or net revenue retention.

When we experience a crisis, we may be strongly tempted to focus our attention on what was happening during the period that came right before the crisis, the ‘Old Normal.’ We may even be preoccupied with the current impact of the crisis itself. It goes against all tenets of self-preservation to look beyond that immediate time of crisis and instead focus on a plan of action in the future recovery phase.

In sales, we all bundle our accounts, clients and prospects, into logical groupings to add clarity and understanding to our efforts. We use vertical categories, assembling together our healthcare, consumer products, technology accounts, and others. We also differentiate by geography, adding efficiency in territory management by bundling accounts based on physical locations. 

Read Time: 10 Minutes

Landing the right enterprise account is a big achievement, with new revenue and healthy margins being two obvious things to celebrate. But unlike smaller account wins, the real significance of the victory is the huge potential for growth over time.

Read Time: 6 Minutes

Understanding the importance of various accounts helps sellers sort customers and prepare for the next appropriate step in a relationship with the client.