by Sales and account management share many of the same characteristics. But while sales people primarily focus on prospecting and closing deals, an account management team never stops selling.
Sales Management
Sales brings in the customers, and account management nurtures and helps them grow.
Salespeople are the ones responsible for sourcing leads or following up with inbound ones, then bringing the business in. Once a deal has closed, salespeople will brief account managers on their new customers’ goals and transition out of the relationship.
Account Management
Account management is a client-facing, post-sale role. Account managers typically work with a dedicated group of clients for the length of the time the client stays with the company to help achieve the client’s goals and represent their company in non-support customer interactions.
Account managers are also tasked with growing these accounts through upsells, keeping quality of work high so clients want to renew/expand contracts, creating case studies, and advising clients on long-term growth strategies.
For example, an account manager at an ad agency would be responsible for understanding the client’s short- and long-term needs.
Account managers are in charge of overseeing client accounts once a sales rep has closed the business. They serve as the day-to-day point of contact for clients, maintain client satisfaction, handle account renewals and upsells, and help clients strategize getting the most from the product or service they’ve purchased.
Project managers, creative teams, strategy teams, and media teams would work on the execution and rollout of specific campaigns, but it’s the account manager’s job to understand how the campaign fits into the client’s long-term strategy and high-level goals.
Account managers are also the client’s day-to-day point of contact. While the client’s questions and plans may touch multiple teams, the account manager is responsible for filtering communication from and to the client.
But account managers don’t just work at services-based businesses like agencies or law firms.
So is account management just customer service?
No. Customer service representatives typically deal with one-off issues, and serve a general customer base rather than being dedicated to a specific group of clients.
How should account managers and salespeople work together?
Account management and salespeople need to have open lines of communication.
When you hand off a new client to their account manager, it’s your responsibility to communicate their goals, plans, and challenges basically, a debrief on everything you’ve gathered during the sales process so your account manager can hit the ground running to help the client achieve their goals.
After handoff, account managers should let salespeople know when there are upsell opportunities or potential for new business.
Depending on who’s responsible or eligible to make the sale, account managers should broach the conversation and work with sales to bring the new deal in, or close the deal themselves.
Why is there a split between account management and sales?
There’s a reason there’s always been a strict Chinese wall between the publishing and editorial sides of newspapers: Journalists are supposed to report the truth, and involving them in ad buys or sponsorships creates the perception of bias, even if nothing unbecoming has happened.
If your account manager has a quota on his head, it’s harder to trust that upsell recommendations or suggestions for new projects are in the client’s interest.
However, the functions also require two different skillsets. It’s difficult for one person to prospect and close well while also successfully maintaining a customer base.
So, splitting these client-facing duties into two separate roles helps salespeople focus on bringing in new business and account managers on nurturing a growing customer base — which benefits both your new business numbers and retention rates.
In some situations, account managers are also responsible for nurturing customers to the point of an upsell, and will then bring in a salesperson to handle the financial transaction.
