So happy together: how to drive- up channel loyalty

A strong sales channel is one of the key business enablers for companies where the majority of B2B sales come through resellers and distributors. But what does “strong” mean? Is it about being big, stable, or fast-growing?

The priorities and strategies may vary. At our organization, we have maintained the loyalty of our partners by creating the most comfortable conditions for working with us. The “strength”, in this case, is not in the number of partners, but in the ability to offer relevant solutions and capabilities to address the customers’ needs.

Loyalty is difficult to quantify. But we have partners in different regions that have been working with us for 15 or even 20 years, and the general trend of sales in the channel allows us to conclude that our efforts, and initiatives, are not in vain. In 2020, the channel showed double-digit growth in revenue, and key partners grew two and a half times faster than the market average.

So, how can businesses increase the loyalty of partners and make them reliable allies? Here are a few steps that we have tried ourselves:

1. Be flexible

Flexibility towards partners means meeting their requests, even if they are not part of the usual offering. This includes, discounts, and special conditions in contracts or exclusive product bundles for a specific project. To achieve this, the vendor should provide some level of freedom of action to local offices. In this way, they can make decisions, and be ready to react quickly at the head office level; to approve the project or, put together the product offering. This definitely makes sense, particularly for big projects. After all, the more the partner sells thanks to these measures, the more the vendor will earn.

2. Communicate and be closer

According to recent research, channel partners, resellers and distributors named vendor support as the top benefit when choosing a firm to resell for. This could be achieved by having a good personal account manager on the vendor’s side, who quickly solves any problem, or answers the partner’s questions. But most importantly, this person should also help their peers in business development. This includes setting goals, drawing up business plans, evaluating progress and mulling over marketing campaigns. Like at our organization, we have account managers for all our gold and platinum partners.

Partners should also have access to vendor executives. Understanding the vendor's strategy allows partners, to better plan their actions in the market or sort out any conflict or crisis. This can be done through regular meetings every quarter, or several times a year. Networking through informal chats during events, is the best way to help strengthen business ties.

Here are two common examples which would attribute to the unlikely increase in partner loyalty. The first is if, the senior management refuses to communicate with a partner. Or secondly, if partners need to break through several levels of management, to gain access to the person who can help.

3. Focus on user experience

The partner should not have to adapt to the vendor’s business processes. Partner programs should be co-developed with resellers, by taking their convenience into account. This includes how marketing planning works, how quickly they can get rebates, how targets are set, and how to report numbers.

For example, if the program only provides marketing planning quarterly, while the partner has internal planning twice yearly, it will be very difficult to align with one to the other. Therefore, if the partner is late submitting the plan he won’t have marketing support and will have to wait for the next quarter.

At our organization, we have introduced free marketing planning, and removed the procedure for accepting targets on the partner portal. We have also reduced the period for paying rebates from a few months to under a month, after the quarter end. We have freed partners from tedious tasks and processes, by streamlining them, to allow Partners to focus on their business, and not waste unnecessary time.

4. Provide expertise and technical support

In addition to helping with planning and marketing, sales support is important. Selling complex products requires special technical expertise. It is important to prepare the partner; but the vendor's internal expertise should complement their knowledge. The vendor can take care of the proof of concept, allocate its sales and pre-sales experts to the partner, or even help in launching marketing campaigns in the regions.

This also works for new offerings, as partners need help to be confident with the technical background of a new product. In Q1 2021, we have launched a few new offerings, and achieved great results with 16% growth. Also, to support sales of complex products, we conducted a vast training program and as a result, certified up to 80% of partners as experts in these products.

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Each of these four steps require effort and investment from the vendor. But that will result in loyal partners, staying with them for a long time. The more they work together, the better they can delve into the technical details of the product, the vendor’s brand values ​​and strategy, and customer needs.

Investment in creating the most comfortable environment for the channel, also gives the partner an incentive to invest in return. Loyal partners are more likely to promote the vendor to their contacts – through marketing, in hiring employees or via training, or through development and retention. As a result, this pattern of loyalty results in what we can call a strong sales channel.

Sandra Lee, Head of Channels, APAC, Kaspersky