Important pointers from case:

1. YRC provides full range of transportation services across all US industry sectors
2. More than 300,000 customers
3. Industrial and consumers goods manufacturers, retailers
4. Customers include both large and small scale, operating at both regional and national scale
5. Large corporate customers – served by key accounts team
6. Majority customers – served by network of local sales offices
7. Accounts manager -> directed by sales manager and area director -> assigned responsibility
of a particular section of the city
8. Potential customer within an accounts managers assigned territory -> 300 to 1500
9. Transportation services required by each customer is unique
10. Types of transportation services required -> guaranteed, time-definite delivery; expedited
delivery; lowest cost route
11. Types of products involved in transportation -> appliances; heavy machinery; apparel;
component parts; speciality chemicals

Q. Develop a list of criteria an account manager at YRC could use to evaluate the relative
attractiveness of 600 potential customers and isolate the top 100 prospects. Assume that you have
full access to any company information, including past purchasing behaviour, revenue and profit
data, customer satisfaction reports, and a complete demographic profile of each customer
organisation.

Ans.

The list of requirements for potential clients might get pretty long. Different industries and consumer
types each have their own specific needs. There is a foundational list where the process starts from a
business standpoint, and it is then further developed as

o The goals for each market are determined by management.

o There has been a shift to a more
o In recent years, sales have been more focused on the client.
o Customers are now the instead of being so reliant, the business's main point.

Below are the things YRC to consider

1. Develop Strategic Accounts:

 They must ascertain how many of these accounts would be available for servicing by analysing
the dynamics of the area that an account manager manages.
 The majority of the office's business comes from these accounts, which are also the most
reliable.
 Below are the things to be questioned:
o What is the account's shipment volume in dollars, for example?
o What country do they ship to? Need direct shipment, warehousing, or cross-docking?
o Are these customers national customers who would bring in recurring revenue?
 Depending on the size of the region, these accounts could include anywhere from 3 to 15
businesses, but they would still account for the majority of revenues. However, they would
account for around 80% of the volume while making up about 20% of the clients.

2. Develop Large Accounts:

 These accounts would make up the majority of the list of accounts.
 The majority of the company, up to 30% in some situations, would be made up of these entities.
These are the accounts that would value the services but might not be willing to pay the
premium for them.
 Below are the things to be questioned:
o Are these clients eager to investigate package deals?
o What other value-added services would they be interested in.
 Because of the comfort and dependability these companies have in the YRC account
representative, it would be challenging for the competition to approach and "take" the business
without the YRC rep giving it a second thought.
 Over the course of the account, there may be small-scale growth, but anything beyond that
would call for a lot of inventiveness.
 There would be 20–30 consumers in this set of accounts, and they would require more time and
focus than the key/strategic accounts.
 These clients would make up between 50 and 60 percent of the total clientele.
 These businesses might use YRC Freight to handle the larger and longer distance transport
services, but they would mostly use regional carriers like Holland or New Penn.

3. Develop Mid-Size Accounts

 These accounts would represent the following-largest percentage of accounts and necessitate
the greatest communication.
 These are the accounts that have the most room for expansion.
 These are the regional accounts that are about to make the transition to the national market and
are looking to build the connection needed to take the next step.
 The YRC representative would need to be aware of the issues that these clients would face in
order to offer the essential answers for the growth boom. extend and these clients.
 The relationship needs to be developed, mutual trust must increase, and some of the executives
need to start contributing to the relationship to support it if it is to have any chance of growing.
 requesting the direction and flexibility of the industry's top players to help them advance.

 Less than 10% of the volume and total number of accounts come from this last group of
accounts. These accounts don't need much attention.

4. Small or Specialty Accounts

 The majority of clients in this category only use the services in specialty shipment or best cost
circumstances.
 The next set of clients could develop from this current one, but it would need a lot of care.
 Most of the time, the clients are smaller or speciality businesses seeking one-of-a-kind services,
with lesser budgets.
 Value-added opportunity may have room to expand, but it might not go beyond the local level.

To evaluate the relative attractiveness of 600 potential customers and isolate the top 100 prospects,
YRC should implement key accounts management in the following ways:
Phase 1:

a. Identify the profit potential of each customer, measured in terms of incremental sales
potential
b. Identify the degree to which each customer values YRC’s support services and are willing to
pay a premium price for them

Phase 2:

Identify customer accounts from phase 1 who have unique support requirements that provide
profitable learning opportunities to YRC i.e., identify the support capabilities that are valued by
multiple accounts

Phase 3:

Identify the potential customers whose transactions complement the economics of YRC