Data shows that companies that provide a great Partner Experience are more successful at establishing and maintaining strong relationships with their partners, resulting in long-term success.
That’s why when prioritizing investments in our partner programs, we must start with strengthening the partner experience.
The definition of partner experience varies slightly from company to company, but from our work, we’ve found that partner experience is the perception partners develop through their interactions with your company, your partner program, your technology, your partner enablement, and your staff.
Strong partnerships are rooted in trust and enabled through continued collaboration, which includes strategy alignment, co-innovation, mutual investment, partner enablement, and shared success. These combine to ensure that the strategic partnership is active and mutually rewarding.
According to a recent BPI Network survey, “45% of executives believe that the biggest challenge when it comes to strategic partnerships is keeping them active and mutually rewarding.”
Strengthening the partner experience begins with a holistic assessment of your partner program and its five components:
- Aligned channel strategy to the corporate strategy to reduce conflict
- Clear, simple, and agile partner program structure for scale
- Efficient and reliable channel operations (breadth & depth)
- Strong partnering culture across the entire organization – ie., across sales, marketing, services, and product
- Staff that is enabled and empowered to build and maintain strong partnering relationships
As The Partnering Success Company, AchieveUnite provides the science and the art for assessing and enhancing these areas with our Vendor Maturity index (VMi™) and a suite of people development programs, including the Partner Performance Advisor (PPA) Certification.
The Vendor Maturity index (or VMi™) is a tool that enables you to complete a comprehensive assessment of your partner program. This tool is highly beneficial if you are a new CRO or Channel Chief who must establish a baseline. It allows you to make informed decisions about key program areas, including:
- The next generation of your program
- Who your partners should be
- Key investment areas for the highest return
- Top partner experience improvement areas
This tool goes beyond the NPS benchmark score by offering a deeper level of actionable insights that give your team meaningful guidance on where, when, why, and how to turn up and down the dials of your program.
In times of economic uncertainty, VMi™ has proven to bring our clients greater internal alignment around investments, leading to a greater return. To learn more, take our free Partner Program Quick Assessment (a mini version of VMi™).
