Fresh

In our line of work, it’s pretty common to have some angst between the Sales and Accounts teams.

Last week I went to lunch with a client who is an Account Manager at her company. We discussed her company’s recent merger and the marketing repercussions, and then moved on to the company’s financial health. She shared with me that during times like these, where budgets are tight and clients’ wallets are even tighter, the tension between her and her Sales team goes through the roof. Instead of striking out and trying to solicit new business (which is the role of this company’s Sales team), her Sales team colleagues are focusing instead on eliciting new business from current clients (which is part of her role in the company). This internal tug-of-war does not bode well for anyone involved.

This concept of increasing client retention isn’t new; at eROI we’ve placed a high emphasis on this in the past two years. Our retention efforts lie primarily on the Account team’s shoulders (with minimal input from our Sales team), and speaking personally I enjoy having the opportunity — sans Sales — to further develop strong relationships with our clients. In my eyes, this is when a client of mine goes from being just a client to being a friend. (Cliché as that might sound, it’s true.)

According to my client, when her Sales team colleagues dip into the “current clients” bucket to increase their sales figures and meet their quotas, her colleagues undermine her authority (by communicating with her clients unbeknownst to her), decrease her credibility (by not presenting their company as a unified team to her client), and diminish the retention efforts that she’d made up to that point (by being inconsistent in her client’s eyes about who should be the main point of contact). I understand her frustration and concern; this is something that can happens frequently even if inadvertently.

Do her Sales team colleagues know that she’s in communication with these clients, and that by them contacting the clients it’s jeopardizing the relationship that she’s building with them? Do her colleagues care? As one who always tries to see the best in people, I have a difficult time believing that her Sales team colleagues know about her retention efforts, dismiss them, and contact the client anyway. I truly believe that people simply want to do well, contribute as best they can, and help the client succeed.

Being analytical by nature, I walked away from our lunch thinking about what she said, and asking myself, “What could she do to keep this from happening?” At eROI, we still have a lot to learn and finesse about our retention efforts, but at a very basic level here are some things that many of us in Accounts do to help keep issues (like the one referenced above) at bay:

1. Keep the salesperson on the account up to date on client activity. For example, if I’m having lunch with a client, I’ll fill in the salesperson on what we talked about and how the lunch meeting went. I think it’s important to keep lines of communication open between sales and accounts.
2. Have a check-in schedule planned in your calendar for each client. For me, checking in with my clients on a quarterly basis seems to work well, and I literally have a reminder pop up every three months. This may vary depending on the account or the amount of work I may have had with the client. By keeping in communication with the client, the Sales team has learned to trust that I’m not leaving business on the table by not reaching out and staying in touch with the clients. The key word in that sentence is TRUST.
3. Motivate your team to increase retention efforts with current clients. This relates more to department managers or those who are in a position to make this sort of change. Since everybody is different, I doubt that there’s one incentive that would motivate an entire team or department. Figure out what would motivate the team to reach out, reconnect, and listen well, and then reward them for a job well done.

I’m curious if there are other tactics, especially ones more formal, that help aid in retaining clients. What do those look like? What articles have you read about this that are particularly helpful or useful? Sales and Accounts can be a powerhouse combination if their relationship is strong and cohesive, and I’d rather have the Sales team on my side as cohorts than across enemy lines as competitors.