What exactly is account management? In this fast-paced age of technological advancement, account management is a key post-sales function that focuses on cultivating customer relationships through technological systems. Account managers usually have two main goals: increase revenues and retain customers.
To achieve these goals, account management executives typically have two roles: one as the principal financial officer, responsible for overall strategy; and one as the account manager, responsible for implementing the financial strategy and ensuring that it is being successfully implemented. In addition to having two very important but different tasks, account management executives also have a number of other roles, depending on the size and complexity of an accounting firm. The most common responsibilities of an account manager at a large firm may include managing internal cash flow, accounts receivable, accounts payable, internal bookkeeping, reviewing accounting information for compliance, preparing financial statements, and liaising with outside vendors and client companies. At smaller firms, the responsibilities may be slightly different.
The primary objective of any account management executive is to foster long-term relationships with their client’s, which in turn will lead to increased profitability over the entire period the firm exists. As such, the primary focus of the job of a manager at a financial firm is to cultivate new business through an effective account management system, which includes a strong support staff and an effective sales and marketing strategy. While maintaining strong relationships with the current clientele is crucial to overall profits, ensuring new business is secured is equally critical. This means that after establishing a good rapport with an account manager client, the manager must then build on those relationships by communicating a strong sales message and generating interest among the new account customers.
While the primary objective of a firm is to secure new clients, cultivating existing relationships is equally important, regardless of the amount of turnover that occurs in accounts. After all, some clients may be more willing to transact with firm that they are familiar with and have established a working relationship with. This is why account management executives should maintain a positive and respectful tone in their interactions with both current and potential clients, as well as their direct sales staff. After all, while having a positive tone and image can sometimes be enough to secure new business, it is equally important to develop close, positive relationships with all of the people who work within a company’s supply chain. In fact, this extends to vendors as well, as many vendors expect account managers to be courteous and polite when dealing with them.
The third task that an account management executive must perform is developing a plan to address any issues or concerns that may arise over the course of the financial year. One of the most common complaints from new clients is that they have not received the account management services that they expected. By regularly monitoring and meeting with your team, you can determine what areas of your company need improvement. For instance, as an executive, you can constantly monitor the accounts receivable and payable to deduce the financial situation of the business (take a look at this blog page here for better understanding – https://l3funding.com/blog/accounts-receivable-vs-payable/). Also, should you be looking for assistance with processing credit card claims because you are experiencing a high volume of new clients, you will want to look into developing a process that makes it easy for your customer service representatives to contact your customers in order to resolve any disputes that they may have. You may also need to look into implementing new training methods so that your customer service representatives are better equipped to deal with any issues that may come up.
Long-term strategic goals are often part of the responsibility of account management executives. You should not only be focused on meeting your current client demands, but you should be creating plans for the future. It is not uncommon for companies to set up short-term goals that help them to gauge the effectiveness of their advertising efforts in terms of both cost and quality. Likewise, you should set short-term and long-term goals that help your company to assess its ability to keep abreast of the ever changing demands of its customers. Although the most common tasks associated with account management are those that relate to the day-to-day operations of a business, it is important to understand that there are many other important aspects of running a successful company.