Account manager
A person who works for a firm and is responsible for the administration of sales and connections with specific clients is known as an account manager (AM). In order to ensure that a customer or group of clients will continue to do business with the organisation, an account manager is responsible for maintaining the company's connections with those clients. Account managers are not responsible for the day-to-day operations of the accounts they manage. They are in charge of managing the relationship that the accounts they are assigned to have with the customer. In most cases, a customer will continue to work with the same account manager over the whole of their business relationship. In a business, the role of the account manager is to act as a liaison between the customer care department and the sales force. They are given responsibility for a company's already established customer accounts. Having specific customers allocated to you is meant to facilitate the development of long-term connections with those clients. The role of the account manager is to get an understanding of the expectations placed by the client, to plan how these needs may be met, and to ultimately produce revenue for the organisation.
The reason why key accounts generate the greatest revenue for a firm is because they comprise a relatively few customers who are responsible for a disproportionately big share of overall revenue. According to the findings of recent studies, the percentage of a company's total revenue that comes from its major clients has climbed from 23% in 1975 to 60% in the present day.
The field that account managers operate in, the size of the firm they are employed by, and the kind of enterprise all have a role in determining the range of duties that they are responsible for. The requirements for each individual client account might vary widely, and an account manager could collaborate with a team of brand managers on one customer account but work with a media department on another. Account directors or agency directors are often the individuals to whom account managers report directly about the activity and status of accounts and transactions. Depending on the needs of the business, a person who manages accounts may be responsible for a single account or for many accounts at the same time.
A key account manager is given the responsibility of supervising the account team that is devoted to a certain client at the headquarters of a corporation. In key account management, sales are a part of the process, but so are strategic planning and the management of all aspects of the relationship between a company and its most valuable clients. An account manager who works in this role will engage in a variety of tasks, some of which include project management, coordination, strategic planning, relationship management, negotiation, leadership, and the innovative development of opportunities, as well as the keeping of record of transaction of sale and purchase of goods. Work in product design and application, logistics, sales support, and marketing may be included among the duties.
The appropriate categorization of key accounts is the fundamental assumption underlying any model for key account management. The Webster categorization model was a fundamental model that was used often throughout the time period of 1950-1970. This paradigm, which Milman and Wilson transformed into a two-dimensional model and which reigned supreme from the years 1970 to 1990, may be said to have been modified. Bensaou has conducted empirical tests on this model using his study on automakers in the United States and Japan, and he has made modifications as a result. The 4S-model, which is a crucial account categorization model, was the result of De Blick's synthesis of the adaptations. By the late 1990s, key account management had become standard practise in the vast majority of business-to-business (B2B) models.