I need my key account to see our delivery as a reason to stay.

I need my key account to see our delivery as a reason to stay.

Reliability shows up in SLAs, reports and renewal conversations. When the client can see it, measured against industry standards, it becomes a reason to keep you and a reason to give you more.

Five questions to see if your team can do this job today:

1. Does your team know which delivery failures would open the door for a competitor in your key account?
2. Has your team invested in the people, tools and processes it takes to deliver on what you promised?
3. Does your account leadership carry goals tied to quality, speed, volume and service?
4. Do you benchmark your delivery against industry standards and show the client where you exceed them?
5. Does your team use its delivery track record in renewal and expansion conversations?

Two or more no's, and your delivery may not be giving the client a reason to stay.

I had been targeting this account for years. The competition had owned the relationship for 12 straight years. Every three years, the client would renew their contract while the rest of us kept losing one RFP after another.

Then something catastrophic occurred with the incumbent vendor. The door swung wide open, and after a formal RFP process, we were awarded the exclusive contract.

Now we were the vendor at the table, but we hadn't proven anything yet. The client's top executives and the Board had approved the deal, and thousands of employees would touch this program in some way.

So, first things first, we built the foundation. We invested in our ability to deliver on our promises. We hired three times the headcount the previous vendor had deployed. We built tools to automate manual processes. We developed a delivery model that could scale across all of the client's locations and functions. We installed account leadership incentivized to deliver on quality, speed, volume and service.

From day one, the client experienced something new: a more robust system of accountability and a vendor making the right investments for the partnership, without being asked.

While we ran a more expensive model than the previous supplier, our investments paid off for both of us. We captured twice as much spend, and the client became our best referral source and champion, willing to sell on our behalf across their industry. That led to 100s of new key account wins and $100M+ in new revenue.

Our system, the Vitality Index, shows your key account teams where they stand today, the work it takes to level up, and how to do it, until they reach a vital partnership that lasts.

Would your key account point to your delivery as a reason to stay?

We built a free, 4-minute Key Account Risk Assessment. It gives you a risk score for your key accounts across team alignment, account planning, account transitions, and visibility. Link in the comments.