Welcome to Episode 62. Usually, I have podcast guests but thought I'd do a quick episode to share with you some best practice tips if you're in the account management role and you're looking to do a bit of relationship risk management.
I believe there are a few 'red flag moments' that every agency account manager needs to be aware of, and look out for. These are, essentially, points in the relationship where your client relationship is at risk, and the account is at risk. And not only are 'red flag moments' important to try to anticipate but, when they happen, it's the account manager's job to act very swiftly, because you are responsible for the client relationship for not only the retention of but also the growth of the account. So, I've just got five examples of what I call, 'red flag moments'. I want to explain to you why I think they're important and share a couple of ideas for how you can either anticipate them, or tackle them.
Five red flags for agency account managers
Red Flag number one
This is where your client tells you, or you find out, that they're leaving the company or they're going on a temporary sabbatical or they're going on maternity leave. So why is this a red flag moment? Well, it means that whoever comes in to replace your client may want to bring their own agency in. Or it might be a person that you're not automatically going to get on with. And, particularly if your client is temporarily away, they might decide not to return at all. So, your established relationship essentially disappears overnight. So, what can you do about it?
As soon as you find out, you need to take action and be proactive. With the client that's leaving, you need to make sure that you are keeping on top of what's changing so that you find out quickly who's replacing them and what the time frame is for when they want to leave. So, you could do something like offer to help them with some handover notes so it makes it easier for them to brief their replacement. And if they're going to a new job and your relationship is good with them, they may also keep you at the top of their mind, because you're being so helpful when they go to their new role. A lot of clients, if they have a good agency, they like to take their agency with them.
The other thing you can do is to explain to your client that's leaving, that it's your agency policy to have a 30 minute 'history of the account' meeting with anyone that comes in to replace them. So, this means that you get in front of that new person as quickly as possible and you're being really helpful because you're showing them what you've done on the account so far, maybe you've done some branding work or some campaign work. It's also really useful, both for your client that's leaving, because it saves them a job, but it also helps their replacement get up to speed on the brand and the marketing. So, it also means that your client is going to share with you the name of the person that's coming in. And what you can do is have a quick look on LinkedIn, look at their job history, their expertise and it will give you a sense of that person coming in. Another thing you can do, there's actually a little app that you can use with LinkedIn called Crystal Knows. It's an app that plugs into LinkedIn and if that person is active on LinkedIn, it can actually evaluate their profile and all of their activity and give you a summary of their preferred communication style. It's a really accurate thing, I've used it a few times. I looked at my own profile first of all, and thought, 'Wow, they are describing me pretty well'. So that is going to give you a little bit of an insight into this new person that's coming in. And obviously, when you have that meeting in person to give them the history on the account, it not only positions you as proactive, but it also demonstrates your understanding of the brand, their business, and it actually reinforces to them why you are very valuable to them. So, that is red flag number one.
Red flag number two
If your client's company is going to merge with or is acquiring another company. Now, this typically means that there's going to be a certain amount of upheaval. And why is this a red flag moment for you? Well, there could be a consolidation of departments when two businesses come together. So, it might be that your contact's job is at risk. Or it could be that they will get moved to another department or promoted to a higher position and they could possibly no longer be your point of contact.
So, what can you do about this? What can you actually do to mitigate against this risk?
The first thing you want to do is try to get ahead of the news. Try not to be the last person to know that your client's business is going through any kind of merger. You can set up Google Alerts, for example, for your client's company name, so that you are receiving regular notifications about what's going on in the business. I think generally, that's just good practice anyway because you want to stay informed of the external environment when you're having meetings with your client. You can also just make sure that you're asking questions on a regular basis about your client's company, what's going on internally, taking an interest in their role and their department and how it's growing or how the business is performing. And typically, if you wanted to set up a more formal environment for that, a lot of agencies do have quarterly business reviews, or quarterly strategy sessions. And these sessions are really where it's a higher exchange of business information. And it's also a forum where you can present new ideas to your client that are more in alignment with their business strategy. So, it's not about the day to day status call, it's about, 'How can we continue to add value to your business?' So, if you don't currently have them set up, then that's a good idea to do so because at those meetings, typically, more senior clients will attend and you will hopefully be more plugged into what's happening at the client's business.
The other thing you want to make sure you do is spread the relationship risk by actively ensuring you're identifying and contacting multiple points of contact at the client organisation. So, if you haven't got a relationship development strategy, then that's a really good idea because sometimes we end up in a situation where we are just relying on one point of contact at the client company and if for any reason they leave or move, then our whole relationship with that account is at risk. So, we need to spread the relationship risk and having a relationship development strategy in place is a good move.
Red flag number three
This is where there's a change of C suite. So, the C suite, (CEO, CFO, CMO, etc.), these are the leadership team of the company. Now, sometimes if a new person comes into the C suite, they might make changes at a very high level. So why is that a red flag moment for you? Well, this has actually happened, so I'm talking from several experiences, that there can be a review and also a consolidation of suppliers. So, it might mean for you that you have to re-pitch for the business. Now, the other thing to mention here is, if your company is an enterprise level client and it had a procurement team in 2021, the role of CPO (Chief Procurement Officer) was the fastest growing role on LinkedIn. This means that procurement is now having a seat at the boardroom table a lot more than they ever used to. They have a lot more power. And obviously, the CPO’s job or procurement team’s job is to make sure that the company is getting value for money. And as one of their suppliers, they will be looking to you to make sure that you're constantly delivering value for them.
So, what could you do about a change in the C suite? Well, the first thing to do is, if your client company has one, establish a relationship with your client's procurement department. It might be called a purchasing team. But essentially, they are the ones that you need to make sure that you're keeping on top of. So it could be that you suggest a quarterly review with them to make sure that you're staying in the know with what's happening at the company level. Procurement are very much the linchpins. They have information about every department in the whole organisation. So they really are the first to know about any senior leadership moves.
The other thing you can do is make sure that you are sharing examples on a regular basis of how you've saved the client money, or perhaps time, or whether you've made them money. So, for example, perhaps you're doing a huge campaign that requires lots of photography work and if you can demonstrate that you've negotiated a special deal for them, because of how much photography you've done, that's a great example of how you are looking to continually make sure that you're offering value. The other thing you can do, to make sure that this doesn't come as a surprise when there's a change on the C suite, is to firstly find out who they are and follow them all on LinkedIn. And then you can watch for updates, you can actually at the moment, click a bell on their profile, which means you're going to be notified of any new posts that are coming through from them. And often, in particularly CEOs, tend to share their vision with their audience. You can also familiarise yourself with the client’s organogram. An organogram is where, on one sheet of paper, you have all of the employees and all the reporting lines, so you can really understand who's who at the company. This will also help you develop your plan of ensuring that you are creating relationships with as many people as you can in the organisation.
The other thing about the C suite is that every quarter, this is related to enterprise level clients, they publish the transcripts of their investor relations meetings. You can download those transcripts and also understand who the C suite is and what's happening with the organisation because they usually talk about the vision for the next quarter or the next year's activity. You can find out where they are going to be putting their money, whether there are any new products in the pipeline, are there any initiatives or new acquisitions etc. You can also see how brands are performing. You can also download the annual report and accounts, read the chairman's statement and have a look at that.
Red flag moment number four
So 'red flag moment' number four is where you've had an annual client relationship review with your client and you've received some negative feedback. Now it might have come as a surprise as well; you weren't expecting perhaps this negative feedback. Now hopefully this is a prompter that if you haven't already got an annual client relationship review in place, to make sure that you do have one. These are really valuable for you to find out from your clients what they think is going well, where they think the development areas are and anything that you could be doing differently. It's also a good opportunity to talk about their future and where they see the company going.
So why is this negative feedback coming back as a 'red flag moment'? Well, particularly if it has come as a surprise, it could be an indicator that they're not telling you stuff that they should be telling you. So either it's because you're not proactively asking for feedback, or they just haven't been telling you the truth about how they really feel about the account and perhaps some of the things that they're not happy with. So this could mean that perhaps they're already looking for alternative suppliers, alternative agencies, which could mean your competition. So, what can you do about this? Well, the first thing to do when you receive the feedback is to make sure that you personally, thank every client for what they've said. And I would suggest that you do that by telephone, by zoom call, video call or in person, to reassure them that all of the points they've raised will be actioned and addressed. There's nothing worse than giving feedback. You know, if you ever done that in a restaurant, where you give feedback and you just know that it's going to go into the ether and it's going to disappear. Is it really going to be read and actioned? Probably not. So, reassure them that you're taking this seriously, you really wanted to know this feedback and you're going to do something about it. Then formulate your action plan based on that feedback and make sure you address all of the issues. Maybe check that as a team internally, with your senior management team or with your colleagues, client service colleagues. Then you can present the action plan back to the client and say, 'Look, we've taken on board all of your comments, we've come up with an action plan, we'd love to talk you through it'. And then you're kept accountable, the client can visibly see that you have a status sheet that means that you can tick things off. Then from that moment onwards, make sure that you over communicate with the client. Keep asking for regular feedback and check-ins. So for example, at the end of a status call, you could just say, 'Look at the end of this call, do you mind putting aside five minutes because I'd love to find out just how you think we're doing and if there's anything that you're not happy with'. So just be really proactive because you don't want negative feedback to come as a surprise.
Red flag number five.
This is where you know that your client's business isn't doing particularly well. Maybe their sales are down for example, or they're losing market share. So why is this a red flag moment for you? Well, if sales are down, then it means that your existing projects that perhaps don't have purchase orders yet and they are not secure, may be put on hold or they could be cut altogether. Or maybe you're on a retainer basis and you're heading towards that retainer renewal date. But either way, this could drastically change your forecast. And your forecast will need adjusting because it could be reduced.
So, what can you do about this? Well, first of all, again you want to get some visibility over the client's sales figures as early as you can. So if you're not already running quarterly business reviews where clients typically share business performance, metrics, etc., then set them up. Also, do your own research into the company's performance. For limited companies in the UK, for example, you can often get a lot of financial performance data by going to the Companies House website and downloading their latest Profit/Loss. You could also look at their website for their annual report and accounts. Again, if it's a publicly listed company, you can download the transcripts of these quarterly investor relations meetings where, typically, the CEO addresses the shareholders and investors and talks about performance. Certainly, if there are shares, then this information is readily available. You can look at previous years as well and see if the trend is down. And also, if you're working on one brand for a client organisation, how is that brand performing versus other brands? Maybe that's going to give you some ideas for perhaps transferring your skills and helping the client with other brands. If you work on a project by project basis, make sure you're always keeping on top of the forecast and also securing those purchase orders for work before starting any projects. Also, if your client's business isn't doing well, then you could as their partner, offer to help the client by running a strategy session of some type, where the client can share with you details of the sales slowdown or something and you can help the client come up with some solutions that maybe they haven't considered.
I hope that's given you some food for thought. Let's just recap on what we've talked about. So, these 'red flag moments' are ones that you want to be aware of, keep an eye out for and also be alert to take some action when they do happen.
The first one we talked about is if your client is leaving the company, or going on a sabbatical or mat leave.
Number two, was your client's company is merging with another one or it's acquiring another one.
Number three, is there's a new incoming member of the C suite - so a senior leader in the business that wants to make some changes.
Number four, is the annual client relationship review comes back with some surprisingly negative feedback.
And then number five, is the client’s business isn't performing well.
I really hope you find this useful and that it's given you some ideas for what you need to be aware of with your client relationship risk management strategy.
If you would like to join my next Account Accelerator programme, which is all about client retention and growth, then please contact me or send me an email jenny@accountmanagementskills.com. You can also find more podcast episodes with lots of valuable information on the main podcast page. Pick a topic that's most relevant to you right now and enjoy it.
