Client Success Scoring

This post is the 5^th in a series of 5 posts highlighting best practice tools to measure winnable opportunities. 

This client success scorer was also developed for a high-ticket, consultative sale and spans both the sales cycle and the ongoing account management relationship.  It tracks the strength of the relationship with the client and the results delivered.  The purpose with this tool was not to qualify or disqualify accounts but to realistically measure how well we were doing at the account and how to make retention and expansion more likely.

The ‘relationship strength’ section is somewhat similar to the fit / winnability tools discussed above with its tracking of initiative priority, contact level, budget size and competitive environment. Additionally, it tracks how the client awards additional business, from an RFP process (weakest relationship) to a verbal ‘give me a bid so we can move forward (strongest relationship).’ 

Another good indicator of relationship strength tracked here is how often strategic reviews are scheduled.   These reviews were face-to-face discussions with the executive sponsor about current project status and future project ideas.  Annual or bi-annual reviews was our target but something we hadn’t earned or asked for at all our customer accounts.

The ‘client results’ section first tracks the annual value created for the client.  Obviously, if you can quantify and get agreement around strong results, retention and expansion are easier.  We also scored solution usage (multiple divisions?), solution depth (multiple solutions?), and renewal status (from “no” to “automatic”). 

We felt referenceability was linked to results because if a client was agreeing to be a reference for sales, or, even better, for national pr / marketing / advertising campaigns, they were getting strong value from the solution.  We also tracked the professional success of the individual buyer  -  did the results from our solution make them a company star (strong)?  Did it get them promoted (stronger)?  Did they parlay it into a best practice industry leadership role (strongest)?

There were 30 points possible from both the relationship and the results sections and we carried the scores on our account management plan.  You’ll also notice that the 2^nd tab on the spreadsheet shows a relationship-results scorecard for 5 accounts.  We used it as a group at a sales / service kickoff to assess how strong our relationships and results were.  It was an eye-opening exercise and made us realize specifically where our relationships and our results could be stronger than they were.

This tool was borrowed from the management consulting industry and implementing it was trickier in the tech model where – unlike the partner-model in consulting - sales and service rolled up into separate VPs.

We were a little too new-business focused and immature for this tool to deliver its full impact but I think it’s a good one for a company with a consultative solution where much of the growth comes from existing client expansion.



(Index of the 5 posts on opportunity scoring)

• Simple Opportunity Scoring (medium average selling price (ASP), spreadsheet)
• Winnability Scoring #1 (low ASP, Salesforce.com)
• Winnability Scoring #2 (medium ASP, Goldmine)
• Sales Resource Prioritizer (high  ASP, spreadsheet)
• Client Success Scoring (high ASP, spreadsheet)