The Research On The Relationship Management Of Key Account In M Company

Impacted by multiple factors such as global macroeconomic slowdown and the trade disputes between China & the united states,23,124 million passenger cars have been produced in China in 2018,decreased down 4.8% year-on-year;23,264 million vehicles was sold in the wholesale market,decreased 3.9% year-on-year;production and sales were both declined year-on-year.On this basis,auto tire sales also showed a downward trend.M company is a world class tire company,which entered China in 1989.M company established the key account Department in 2006,and now has established stable business relations with more than 50 key accounts in China.However,in recent years,the annual sales volume of key accounts of M company is basically maintained at the level of around 2 million`s,at the annual growth rate of 4-5%.On one hand,the sales volume is far below the expectation from the group;on the other hand,there is also a risk of the decline of the market share at some important and mature key accounts in M company.In order to improve M company's key account management,this study conducted a questionnaire survey on key accounts,and conducted internal interviews with key account managers and key account director.The questionnaire survey takes the grassroots of key accounts as the research objects,including luxury brands like Audi,Lexus,joint-venture brands like Dongfeng Nissan,GAC Toyota,SAIC Volkswagen,as well as representative domestic brand like GAC.The investigation and interview found six major problems in the key account management of M company :(1)not paying enough attention to the key account,and the key account manager's working mode is relatively simple and processoriented;(2)The business classification of key accounts only considers the existing sales volume,which is not a perfect solution;(3)The key account manager fails to keep the pace with times and meet customer new requirements;(4)The customer satisfaction survey is superficial;(5)insufficient investment in grassroots stores of key customers;(6)insufficient attention to the grass-roots work of these key accounts.Therefore,this study give improvement suggestions from these five aspects.1.Elevate the key customer relationship management to a strategic level,which mainly includes strengthening the guiding ideology of establishing key customer dependent relationship management and take the key account as a strategic asset.2.Improve the classification of M company's key accounts.According to the investigation results and problem analysis,this study proposes a classification strategy combining the current value and potential value of customers,Based on the relevant studies,optimizing the factors and giving each factor the weighted value,and according to the calculated score,customers were divided into four types: diamond accounts,platinum accounts,silver accounts and brass accounts.Comparing the old and new categories,we found that among M company customers,5 of them changed their categories when considering potential value.A more comprehensive analysis reveals that the important customers of the old standard are still the diamond customers of the new standard;The 9 non-essential customers of the old standard change to 2 platinum customers,3 silver customers and 4 brass customers according to the new standard respectively.This paper propose the management measures according to the new structure of customers.3.Increase support for key customers' grassroots stores.Specifically,it includes: promoting the display of products in the OEM channels and strengthening the distribution of publicity materials,strengthening the product training and basic sales training in the OEM channels,assisting the OEM channels to perfect the tire business model design,assisting the OEM channels in tire business management and jointly carrying out consumer promotion,etc.4.Improve the business ability of Key account manager of M Company,including: let key account manager fully understand customer needs again;Enhance the business management ability of key account managers,such as customer insight and value creation ability;Improve personal comprehensive ability and product and industry knowledge.5.The major customer loyalty survey of M Company should be more scientific and standardized.Instead of the formal customer satisfaction survey,a questionnaire is designed to investigate customer loyalty from four aspects,namely product,service and process,personnel and the whole,and finally a new survey management process is proposed.This research is not only helpful for M company's key account management,but also play a reference role for other similar enterprises' key account relationship management.