I need to ensure our key accounts stay healthy and thriving after people leave.

I need to ensure our key accounts stay healthy and thriving after people leave.

Much of what makes a key account work lives in people's heads: who decides, what they care about, what was promised and why. When someone leaves or changes roles, that knowledge can leave with them. Teams that capture it in one place and keep it current hold on to it through every change.

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

1. Is what your team knows about the account captured in one place the whole team can reach?
2. Is that record updated on a set schedule?
3. Does it cover the people, their priorities and the history of the relationship?
4. Could a new key account manager (KAM) get up to speed from it in their first month?
5. Do the customer's key contacts know more than one person on your team?

Two or more no's, and some of what your team knows may leave when someone does.

When I looked across all our accounts, one thing became abundantly clear: the CRM was not up to date on strategy and planning. The activity was happening, and so was the reporting. What was missing was the why and the how: why we were doing what we were doing (objectives), what we were trying to achieve (strategy) and how we were doing it (plans). The system showed me thousands of meetings across 50 account team members, but it didn't show me what any of it meant. That knowledge was trapped in the heads of our account managers.

The meetings were on record, and the thinking behind them lived in people's heads. Your team can capture the objectives, strategy and plan for each key account in one place, so the reasons stay with the account when people move on.

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.

If your top KAM left tomorrow, could someone else explain the strategy for their largest account?

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.