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featureed image Published 2017-06-15, by Kellie Auman

What Is Channel Conflict & How Can I Avoid It?

Channel conflict can occur when multiple partners are selling the same product in a market for different pricing. Inevitably, this will create a situation in which your channel partners have to compete against one another and/or your internal sales team. 

This conflict is not just price-based, but includes friction that can arise from a lack of dealer training, poor communication from company to dealer or merely inefficiently delivering information and applications from too many old legacy sites and systems. No fear, we plan to help you avoid channel conflict and increase your channel sales. 

First, it's important to understand how channel conflict impacts your customers, your channel partners and your company.

Customer impact:

  • Delay their purchase to ensure they are getting the 'best deal'
  • Regret their purchase  once they learn of the ‘better deal’

Channel partner impact:

  • Decreased morale within the channel
  • Lower employee engagement and mindshare

Company impact:

  • Frustration with channel partners
  • Missed revenue targets

While you might not be able to completely eliminate it all together, you can manage and take precautions to avoid channel conflict by taking the following steps:

  • Your partners must have clear, consistent and fluid communications coming from one source so that the product/service message is uniform. They also need active alerts, reminders and bulletins about new product introductions.
  • Your channel partners should be continually trained (via webinars, e-learning activities, etc) so that they are properly aligned with the value proposition andmarket positioning of your product/service.
  • Measuring your impact and success is a vital key to a company’s performance because it will help you make more practical decisions.  Having monitored and evaluated data at your finger tips allows you to make those decisions in a timely manner.
  • Your partners must have access to a partner portal so that you and your partners can effectively collaborate on products and sales strategies.

To effectively execute these action points without draining your company’s already limited resources – you need a channel partner management system, which is a full service platform that allows you to educate, support and track your partner’s performance so that all parties can be more successful sellers. A channel partner program (for example, a Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solution) can reduce the cost of managing and administering the channel and remove most of the causes of the conflicts themselves, improving results for all involved. 

LogicBay is the industry’s premiere Partner Relationship Management solution, centralizing everything you need to provide your partners with everything they need.  With LogicBay, you can easily create vast repositories of marketing materials which are available to your entire ecosystem, while ensuring materials used are always fully up-to-date and using the latest information.  Contact LogicBay today for a free demonstration of the system.

PRM best practices