11.15.10 Show Your Clients They Matter

An Account Review is an essential part of client retention and growth. Often though, we manage the process reactively versus proactively.

Here are my tips for a successful account review:

Start the design internally

Design the metrics that will produced a proactive, thorough review. It also needs to “wow” your client in its comprehension and message.

Standardize the process

Don’t end up re-inventing the wheel with each review. Standardizing the processs will save time because you avoid the “more-is-better” syndrome.  It will also give you measurable metrics from which you can determine success levels from review to review.

Do your homework

Pinpoint not only the metrics you will report on but also the clients you will interview BEFORE the account review meeting.

Most of my clients discover that their clients have issues they want to understand and resolve. By meeting with them individually you get an important “heads-up” to make the account review  more relational and professional.  These meeting also illustrate your confidence in the relationship and your desire to establish joint ownership of the review, therefore getting their skin in the game along with yours.

Merge Their Needs with Your Solutions

Once the pre-reviews are completed you can then engineer into the review your company’s value proposition as tailored to your client’s goals as stated to you.

Define Next Steps

End the account review proactively with a set of clear next steps on your part and theirs to further the relationship you have with them. Say to them, “your business is important to me and to my organization, I’m looking forward to our joint collaboration next quarter.”  We often don’t acknowledge our clients in this heartfelt fashion.

Follow these steps and you should see a marked improvement in your reviews.  Let me know how they go.