Building Best-in-Category Account Managers
Consumer Packaged Goods
The client
A North American beverage company
Challenge
- Difficult consumer packaged goods industry environment with growing customer consolidation combined with eroding consumer loyalty
- Company faced pressure not only on top-line sales but also on bottom-line profitability
- Customer perceptions of account management capability were low in relative to competitive beverage manufacturers
HORN Solution
- Designed a multi-year, modular learning curriculum, to address specific account management gaps in the areas of:
- Knowing the financial drivers of the business – their own and their customers’
- Translating consumer / shopper / category data into business-building insights
- Formulating differentiated customer business plans strategically aligned to customer and company strategic priorities
- Conducting influential customer meetings, resulting in mutual commitment to action
- Motivated strong sales leader involvement to embed new account management skills
- Pre-training session to build buy-in and commitment
- Leaders encouraged to take on active co-facilitation role in sessions
- Post-module webinars to help leaders reinforce the learning, coach to gaps, facilitate best-practice sharing, and inspire Account Manager accountability
- Turnkey coaching tools to help leaders recognize what good looks like and assess gaps for timely coaching feedback
