Managing your large and key customers is an important yet often tricky act for many businesses, especially smaller ones.
By their very nature your key customers can place you as a supplier (of product or service) under much greater pressure than your smaller customers. Large customers deliver the much needed revenue and often prestige for your business or brand but they are also able to apply pressures to your supply chain, margin and time.
How you manage these customers can be vital to the future success of your business, manage them poorly and they can ultimately be the downfall of your business.
Know their business - Allan Leighton (former CEO of Asda) once said “If you don’t know my business, you don’t have a business!”. Find out everything you can about their operation, understand what pressures they may be coming under and build your service around that knowledge.
Relationships are key – People by from people, it might be a cliche but its true. If you need a customer to get behind a new product or to implement a change it all happen much faster and smoother if you have a good relationship with your buyer and the team around them.
Have a plan – Take time to write a 2/3 year plan for your key customers and option build for possible future scenarios. Be clear on your strategy to develop these accounts and understand where you want them to be in the future. Look to have a ‘What if?’ solution ie: What if they go bust? What is the impact and alternative for my business?
Move from being Transactional to Collaborative - If you spend all your time with your key customers talking about investment, prices, deals, service levels, margins you have a transactional relationship. Work on moving the relationship to a more collaborative one by bringing more to the table than just price. Look to discuss joint business plans, offer strategic insights and thought leadership, demonstrate your understanding of their business and trading environment. Make yourself a strategic partner and position your product/service as far away from being a commodity as possible.
