Discover how to build long-term client relationships with Celonis

It’s always the straightforward-sounding jobs that hide some of the most difficult tasks. Take account management as an example. The brief: retain the client, grow the opportunities. The reality: knowing what the client wants before they do. 

Companies have to deliver consistently great customer experiences if they want to retain them, and boost profit. This can be an uphill battle. In fact, Gartner found only 28% of sales leaders agree that existing account management channels regularly meet their cross-selling and account growth targets.  

Account management needs a strategy 

Far from a one-time transaction, great account management builds long-term, mutually-beneficial relationships. And there is no shortage of tactics that account management can throw at customers to get there: service and support, cross-selling, up-selling, and exclusive offers. But they need a strategy to make them stick. 

A strategic approach will account for customers’ needs over time, create customized products and solutions, and even understand their pain points before they do. It will make retained (highly profitable) business a no-brainer. 

The C-suite knows this. Gartner reports 70% of CSOs are either considering or already investing in a dedicated sales development team and 72% of CSOs marked improving pipeline creation as their top priority.

How process mining improves account management 

This is where process mining can help. By ingesting data from across employee system interactions, sales and finance documents, and real-time event data streams, process mining creates a holistic view of business processes.

But what can account management do with that view? Here are three use cases:

1. See how leads become orders: Get data insights on transactions, revenue, and pipeline, and check out how customers are making their purchases, the journeys they’re taking, and what’s stopping them from getting to the finish line. 

2. Reveal hidden inefficiencies: Process mining paired with the Celonis Execution Management System reveals and fixes hidden process inefficiencies by connecting to disparate data and providing the intelligence to understand what to fix first. Watch how Celonis gave 500,000 hours back to Dell’s sales team. 

3. Keep customers onside: Long-term clients reduce operating costs like prospecting and lead nurturing – Bain reports a 5% increase in customer retention results in a 25% increase in profits. With process mining companies can lower their resolution times and improve self-service options – ensuring customers get support whenever they need it. 

Lift the lid on account management and it doesn’t take long to see there’s nothing straightforward about it. But as they say, nothing good ever came easy. By bringing in process mining, account management teams can get ahead of their customers and be prepared to impress and retain them at every turn. 

Get more detail on how the Celonis EMS improves customer service here. 

Edward Baggaley

Senior Content Marketing Manager

Edward writes for and about Celonis from London.