Client industry:
Software/Technology

Employee Size:
96,498

Customer / Partner Coaching Context:

The Malaysia Business of a large multinational in the Information Technology sector was reeling from large variations in forecast and a consistent decline in results across quarters. They couldn’t figure out at which level there was a decline. They decided to rope us in to help clear the rot through the power of coaching.

Customer / Partner Coaching Conduct:

We realized quickly that the root cause for the variations and the decline lay at the crucial customer interface. We worked with the Frontline Sales Managers to identify a set of customers with whom they would take a coaching approach to maximize return for the customer’s time. One of the manager’s objectives was to showcase so much value in the conversation that the customer can decide to take them one level higher within their hierarchy. The other objective was to coach their team members so that they stand differentiated in the eyes of the customer.

Customer / Partner Coaching Results:

From the coachee’s perspective they realized the possibilities of coaching at the customer interface. In fact, they we were even excited about the possibility of group coaching at the customer interface.

From the team member’s perspective, they saw a refreshing change in their manager’s attitude and orientation towards them. Their manager now seemed more positive and more committed towards their development, in the quality of their customer conversations.

From an organizational perspective, they discovered that higher order customer conversations helped customers perceive the organizational differentiation much better. Better customer conversations helped in a higher order of qualification as well as increased deal size on account of the ability to gain access to key decision makers. With better qualification came more accurate forecasts and with better client conversations the overall business performance picked up considerably.