How to Conduct an Effective Account Review With a Customer

Make Your Account Reviews Count: Your guide to leading account reviews that drive customer satisfaction and open up the door to organic growth

in Account Direction, Quarterly Business organisation Reviews, Fundamental Account Management /

Don't just check the box. Motility the needle.

Business relationship reviews are an incredible opportunity. They open the door to feedback, insights, and opportunities. They're a gamble for confront-time between leadership and cantankerous-functional teams from both organizations. They strengthen relationships, build customer engagement, and create opportunities for organic growth through customer improvement.

But business relationship reviews merely work if they're done right.

Beneath is our guide to leading engaging and productive account reviews. We've included big movie best practices as well equally several applied tips. To acquire more most how Kapta can back up you in making account reviews count, schedule your personal demo.

Schedule Regular Cheque-Ups

Nosotros say it all the fourth dimension: Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) are a affair of the past. Not considering business concern reviews aren't critical, but considering quarterly isn't enough.

So how often should you schedule account reviews? As e'er, it depends. If you're already in constant contact with your client, through regular status meetings or deliverables reviews, you tin can beget to schedule less frequent formal reviews. If you are not already talking to your client all the time, you need to schedule account reviews at least every ii-4 weeks.

However frequently you have them, make sure your account reviews are separate from 24-hour interval-to-twenty-four hour period meetings, so you can focus on the big picture show, invite big players, and cheque in on the human relationship as a whole, rather than getting lost in the weeds of any given deliverable.

Prepare to Add Value

We conducted a survey of over 100 CIOs and CMOs, and found that almost account reviews fell flat for one simple reason: The team wasn't prepared. Give yourself time leading upwardly to the meeting to put together a deck. Assign an owner, and and so ask:

• What did nosotros embrace in the last business relationship review? Make sure you're not repeating yourself, or asking questions you lot should already know the answer to.
• What did we commit to in the final account review? If y'all haven't already, make sure you lot follow upward on the status of any outstanding deliverables or activeness items.
• What do the numbers (actually) say? Account reviews are a great time to cover any relevant metrics or KPIs—particularly if they've changed since the last review. But remember: Your clients don't want to interpret a dozen charts and graphs. They want you to do that for them. Brand sure y'all interpret data into key takeaways and actionable insights.
• Has the team weighed in? If you work on a cantankerous-functional team, make sure key people from each department review your presentation. They might have insight you don't have, or they may see a red flag. Y'all can too consider inviting those team members to the review, as advisable (see below for more tips on getting the right people in the room).
• Are we adding value? Recollect, you're pulling your customers away from their day and work to come to this meeting. Don't just tell them what they already know.
• Can we be more than succinct? As the French philosopher Blaise Pascal famously said, "I would have written a shorter alphabetic character, but I did not have the time." Whittle downwards your slides to those that add together value, spark meaningful conversation, respond outstanding questions, or heighten new, important questions. Avert fluff. A besides-long presentation is a hallmark of non having fully prepared.

What it all comes downwards to is this: You tin't put together your side by side account review the day before your next account review. Y'all need time to get input from the team, turn data into meaningful insights, and build a review that adds value and sparks good chat.

Stay Client-Focused

Retrieve: It's not about you. Account reviews are a great opportunity to demonstrate value and show what you've accomplished, but you have to brand sure you lot relate back to your customer's stated goals. Structure the meat of your presentation effectually active client objectives, including:

• Recap: Here's what you (the customer) wanted to accomplish, and here's what we (together) decided to do to get there
• Current status: Hither's where nosotros are (progress, timing, budget, metrics of success)
• Key takeaways: Here'southward what we've learned to date (if applicative)
• Course correction: Here's how we're adjusting our arroyo (if applicable)
• Thoughts/comments? Suspension periodically to get client input (more on this below)
• Next steps: Here's what we're doing next

Nosotros'll talk more near the customer input piece below—for now, just brand sure you're building in enough of time for a 2-way chat, rather than a 1-sided presentation. And inquire yourself with every slide or bullet point: Is this meaningful/interesting to my client? Or just to me? If the respond is the latter, take it out.

Considering you're structuring the bulk of your account review around your client'due south stated goals, any pipeline reviews need to happen separately. A skilful account review may reveal new customer goals (and new opportunities for business), but it's not an overt sales meeting. Information technology's a reckoning against the goals your customer has already set, and the commitments you've already made. You can come up back to new opportunities later.

Create a 2-Mode Conversation

Account reviews are a great opportunity to hear from your clients first hand. They're a face-to-face Voice of Client exercise—but only if yous talk with your customers, not at them.

Inquire most their satisfaction. Are they happy with the work? Are they happy with the squad? Enquire if there's anything they'd like to change or improve. Ask near their goals. Have they inverse or evolved since the last time you spoke? Are they facing new market place trends or competitive threats? The sooner yous know, the more proactive you tin be near solving their bug—earlier they attain out to some other vendor, or another vendor reaches out to them.

In order to go meaningful Voice of Customer insights, y'all need to make sure the right customers are in the room. Here are a few practical tips:

• Build a balanced room. Don't send ten people from your organization if there are just ii attendees from the customer side. A balanced room creates a counterbalanced dynamic—if customers feel outnumbered, they may be less likely to speak up. Not to mention, sending too many people raises dollar-sign-question-marks in your client'south listen, ie "Am I paying for all these people to nourish?"
  Invite leadership from both sides: Sending leadership from your system signals to your customer that their business matters. Information technology's likewise an splendid chance for managers to observe their squad in action, and to gauge the wellness of the relationship. Not only tin can leadership take activity if in that location are scarlet flags, simply they can also use their observations to drive ameliorate internal operation reviews for the team.
• Invite cantankerous-functional teams: A common mistake account managers make is feeling likewise possessive of their client relationships. It'southward understandable—those relationships are a large part of the value you lot add together to an organization. But if you allow your full squad directly admission to your customers, they'll do a ameliorate job for your customers. Keeping other departments siloed from the client makes it incommunicable for people to act with the customer top of mind.
• Build in time for feedback: If your account review is 1 hour long, prepare xxx minutes of content to present. In doing so, you build in enough of fourth dimension for clients to actively participate in the review, calculation commentary, questions, and feedback forth the way.

End with an Action Plan

It'south been a great meeting. You presented insightful, relevant updates. Your clients were engaged participants. You revealed new opportunities and asked interesting questions. Then at present what?

Make certain to leave meetings with an action plan in place. Include deliverables, delivery, and timing. Schedule the next review, and identify any particular attendees who should exist there.

Hither'due south another practical tip: Block your calendar for an additional one-2 hours following the meeting to give yourself time for firsthand action items, such as:

• Contact report
• Scheduling subsequent customer meetings
• Scheduling internal regroups
• Alerting internal teams to whatever immediate feedback or next steps
• And more

Just as we encourage you to build in time leading upwardly to the review, we encourage you to build in time following the review. Setting aside time to set up and follow upwards, respectively, means you lot have account reviews seriously—and that's the first step towards making them work for you.

Drive Customer Improvement

Good account reviews should require internal follow up. Perhaps you gained some valuable insight on current deliverables, and you desire to share with the broader team to inform their ongoing work. Or perchance yous heard some interesting nuggets that could turn into opportunities for organic growth. Pull some practiced minds together and start brainstorming how you might assist your customers achieve goals.

Customer improvement is the practice of knowing your customers—and their business—nigh better than they know themselves, and then you can offering ideas and insights they wouldn't have thought of on their own. That's the kind of value-added relationship that grows over time, but it takes time to brand it happen. Don't just run your account review and forget everything you lot heard until the next ane—apply internal resources to translate customer comments into meaningful feedback for the team, and meaningful growth potential for your customers.

Conclusion

We've covered lots of best practices for conducting excellent account reviews, and nosotros've included practical tips throughout to help yous operationalize your approach. Now—what kinds of tools do you have to help along the way?

Kapta'southward real-time tracking and reporting tools arrive like shooting fish in a barrel to access on-the-spot information for whatever given business relationship. Pull metrics, testify progress, and visually demonstrate value with a few clicks.

Kapta's collaboration hub gives y'all a central repository for the output of client reviews, whether it'southward a alter in approach, an update to timing, or an update to strategy.

And Kapta's VOC tools help capture customer feedback and client goals in a fashion that prompts follow up and further discussion, reinforcing the behaviors that transform customer relationships.

To larn more than about how Kapta can help y'all ready for and brand the most of account reviews, schedule a demo today.

CEO at Kapta
Alex Raymond is the CEO of Kapta.

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Source: https://kapta.com/resources/key-account-management-blog/account-management/make-your-account-reviews-count

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