The manager is responsible for taking actions that contribute to the formation and maintenance of productive relationships with the firm's most important clients.
The key responsibilities of a Key Account Manager include:
Customer Relationship Management: A key account manager needs to stay in touch with key customers at all times, regularly asking them for feedback to understand their needs.
Customer retention: This manager should primarily strive to retain existing customers. To do this, he needs to satisfy their needs to the greatest extent and transform any of their objections.
Relationship Development: The specialist advertising data package must ensure the development and strengthening of relationships with clients. To do this, he can interact with each key consumer according to an individual plan.
Finding and acquiring new clients. Although a key account manager primarily deals with current clients, he or she may also be required to find and acquire new key clients.
Analysis and reporting. The manager must analyze customer data and summarize the results achieved. In particular, he can check the level of customer satisfaction, the effectiveness of customer retention measures, etc.
Cooperation with other departments. In his/her work, the key account manager has to constantly interact with other departments of the company, including sales, marketing, service, etc.
Document for download:
Sample job description for a key account manager
Difference Between Key Account Manager and Sales Manager
As follows from the definition above, key account managers differ from sales managers primarily in that they specialize not in the bulk of consumers, but in a narrow segment. In addition, significant differences concern the set of mechanisms and tactics used. The activity of sales specialists is to lure new buyers and increase the cost of transactions, while key account managers deal with current consumers and seek to extract the greatest benefit from relations with them.
Yet both categories of managers are close to each other in that they try to find out what customers really want, give them what they want, prevent customers from leaving, earn their high level of trust, and bring the deal to a conclusion.
How to bring a deal to a conclusion
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The number of regular customers assigned to one sales manager varies from 10 to 25 in different companies. In comparison, there are only 2-3 customers per key account manager. Since it is difficult for an ordinary specialist to pay attention to all customers, his results ultimately deteriorate. At the same time, his functions remain similar:
Resolving disputes in the relationship between the client and the company.
Accepting orders, reviewing comments and wishes of customers.
Promotion of related products, participation in marketing campaigns.
Forming a positive opinion about the brand by providing quality service.
Implementing direct sales of products that contribute to profit growth.
Finding and attracting new clients, as well as retaining old ones (until the moment when they can be considered key and assigned to the appropriate manager, if this happens at all).
Support for all clients related to the specialist and timely response to all requests received from them.
Providing the client with the opportunity to seek help from the company and personal consultation to resolve any issues that arise.
Compared to sales managers, there are very few key account specialists in any company, since the required audience is a small share of the total. An ordinary employee can grow to a key account manager if he demonstrates his ability to attract many buyers and build business relationships with them.
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