I was working with a training company who felt their service was very different because they used actors to embody customers. My task was to help them win assignments with major accounts.
People who had gone through the program loved it and so did corporate training departments but sales projections were not being met.
The training company had a large financial institution as a satisfied client and their pricing model indicated large participant numbers. Pursuing other companies in the financial services sector made sense, so we began an outreach campaign to national banks across North America.
8 months later, we didn't have even a glimmer of a project.
In my role as a key account strategist, I knew we needed to make some changes. This is what I did:
1. Positioned the service as a customer experience initiative rather than a training program
2. Began the sales process with business unit leaders rather than the training department
3. Demonstrated the benefit of increased returns on "sunk costs" made in marketing and skills training.
4. Defined a very narrow niche within the procurement group to avoid commoditization. The category was defined as "experiential learning in customer experience improvement initiatives".
We made these changes and within 14 months had secured an engagement with the fourth largest bank in the United States.
The firm has since become a preferred provider enterprise-wide within this bank.
Multiple assignments from this one client has produced double-digit growth for 3 consecutive years.
An additional benefit as been increased credibility within the financial services sector, leading to assignments with 4 of the top 25 banks in the country.
What made the difference?
1. Positioning the service in terms of its benefits (customer experience improvement) rather than its features (low-cost, telephone-based delivery)
2.Understanding that the real purchaser was the head of the business unit, not the training department, which functions as a service supply co-ordinator.
3. Demonstrating that the service would amplify the financial return on investments already made by other areas of the business eg. marketing and skills training.
4. Defining the terms of the service contract very tightly so that there were few to no competing providers.
Catherine McQuaid, Big Game Hunting
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