Who is an Account Manager? Role of an Account Manager

To understand the Account Manager, one must first know what an account is. The term Account has different meanings in financial as well as business terms. The account in financial terms is pretty commonly used but in business terms, it means a particular customer which generates business officially.

That one revenue generator is termed as Account. So Account manager is the one who manages literally everything for that account right from order collection, payment collection to providing after sales service and if anything else as and when required. The account manager acts as a single point of contact for that account.

Types of Account Manager :

1. Key Account Manager: Key Account Manager are the managers for specific accounts – usually a high business generating ones. These manage either separately or in sync with regular account managers. Their geographic territory may be a specific region or zone.
2. National Account Manager: The manager of the key accounts across the nations. At times they manage the key account managers across the nation or only specific accounts.
3. Global Account Manager: Key accounts spread across the entire globe are managed by Global Account Manager. Like their National counterparts, they may either manage certain accounts directly and/or manage the National Account Managers.

Roles and Responsibilities of Account Managers :

The nature of the duties of an account manager may vary depending on the size of the organization, the nature of the business, the volume of the business. They act as the middlemen between management and the customers and unlike regular managers, they can relay the concerns and feedback of the customers faster. Account Managers may at times, also work with Brand Managers to ensure smooth experience in the implementation of marketing strategies and if need be, customization of the campaign for a particular set of accounts.

In a small and new organization, there may not be any requirement of Account Managers but as the size of the business grows, top accounts require specific focus and enhanced customer support for them and this is when the company decides to hire an account manager.

The following can be said as the major roles and responsibilities of the Account Manager :

1. Developing strong relationships with the existing elite clientele, effectively assessing the client needs and requirements and proposing customized solutions for the accounts
2. Achieving and exceeding the targets related to the account, maintaining a record of the account and submitting regular reports to the management
3. Having a Sales plan to achieve and exceed monthly, quarterly and annual targets in an ethical way while ensuring customer satisfaction and being in sync with the vision of the management
4. Prepare regular sales presentation to update the management about the status of the account, seeking assistance if required from seniors or colleagues also providing support if necessary
5. Covering all the specified accounts every day and having a regular monthly tour plan for the same
6. Having account wise sales plan ready for the given period along with the means to achieve it
7. Planning Sales Call to build, develop and maintain the relations with the customers on a regular basis
8. Connecting key business executives with the account stakeholders to enhance the relationships and generate business
9. Being the first point of contact for the account, related to any queries, support or feedback
10. If needed, escalating the queries to the higher management and providing a faster resolution for the same
11. Working in sync with the regular sales team in order to achieve the team targets
12. Overseeing the account in terms of Sales, business generation, Negotiation, providing statements etc.
13. Responsible for Sale as well as the payment collection from the account on a timely basis in coordination with Finance team
14. Act as the mediator between the account, it’s stakeholders and marketing team, coordinating the marketing campaigns at the account, customizing if need be, and ensuring successful contribution to the campaign from the account. Managing the entire campaign if required, to ensure a smooth customer service and experience for the customer
15. Providing marketing material or any other support material by coordinating with the other internal stakeholders of the company
16. Providing demonstration of products to the customer after getting an approval from the management for conversion of account to generate the sale.
17. Grow the accounts in terms of business, by developing a relationship with internal and external stakeholders along with all the people influencing the key decision maker and to hand the developed over to the senior key account manager or national account manager
18. Develop regular accounts with the help of general sales team to convert it to key account for handling by the key account manager
19. Occasionally travel in order to serve the accounts better, having relations with the prospective customers and maintaining and growing the relations with existing accounts
20. To ensure time-bound solutions are provided to the customer with respect to the product or the customer service, sales, technical queries, accounting or any other queries
21. Planning the Sales call as per the targets and keeping the general sales team as well as the management in the loop about it
22. Prepare reports regarding the sales visit and sales discussion, key highlights of the sales call and other observations if any along with the details of the brand promoted and customer reaction on the same.
23. Generation of monthly sales reports to let know the account from an economic standpoint for the company
24. Responsible for practicing effective relationship management, especially for clients requiring data solutions, to nurture associations
25. Managing difficult customers competently while ensuring no customer churns
26. Handling each customer transaction from end-to-end and ensuring customer delight, despite a drastic increase in a number of transactions

Qualifications for Account Manager:

1. Should have technical and domain knowledge in the working field
2. Should be computer proficient since he is required to generate regular sales report and prepare presentations
3. Should possess basic knowledge of IT and related segments
4. Should have knowledge of the geography that will be assigned and also should possess competitor knowledge for competitor conversion
5. Should be a team player and at times, should be able to manage teams or work across cross-functional teams in order to get the work done
6. Should be graduate and preferably post graduate in related segments and domain.