Client Management Tips

Client Management is an art. But you can create a method to the madness in managing the relationship.

1. Create an account management hand book that will depict every interaction with the client. Best is to create what is called as the 360 degree Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to capture views from different touch points of client relationship. CRM primarily covers sales or marketing interaction with the client. You need to have a 360 degree CRM that captures sales, marketing, engagement management, delivery and finance inputs to the client management. This becomes the Intellectual Property of your company to manage the client.

2. Take proactive steps to service them and surprise them with such a service. Broadcast your proactive work to the client.

3. Make the cost of switching very expensive. Today's world the competition to capture the market is very high. Don't be complacent that your client will switch to another vendor. It can happen for any reason. Plan ahead to make this switch very difficult for them.

4. Provide the value add that they expect to get from you or they don't pay to get. For eg. providing case study of how their competitor has succeeded or what new technology will take them ahead of time etc.

5. Use your spare capacity effectively. Sometimes your spare capacity will be idle. This is anyway your fixed cost. Use your space capacity to position yourself ahead among your competitors.

6. Look for intangible benefits i.e benefits other than revenue at the client site. eg. building collateral with their work, asking them to endorse your work, making them reference clients etc.

7. Blow each other's trumpet.

8. If the business is surviving because of individual relationship change that to value based relationship. This will pay dividends in the long run.

9. Keep evaluating risks in the relationship and provide contingency measures

10. If you are still loosing business for a reason that you don't have control over salvage the situation by identifying what else you can get from that relationship other than the revenue.

11. Customer is the king! Never write or speak any nasty words even if they default payment or take away your employees. Always keep an entry point to go back to them.

12. Do a SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) analysis of your client and revisit this once every 3 months.