How can you become an indispensable account manager?

From my experience as an SEO account manager, I strongly believe that to become an indispensable account manager, the approach must be multi-faceted but most importantly, client knowledge is essential!!! Here are a few tips that can help: 1. Dive deep into the scope of work and understand your clients business models, goals, and the challenges they face. Recognize their industry dynamics, competitive landscape, and market trends. This isn't just about the data, but much more how to communicate it to stakeholders. 2. I’ll recommend that you sort of customize your interactions and solutions to align with each client's unique needs and preferences. This works all the time.

An indispensable account manager is someone who understands their clients' business, communicates effectively, builds trust, is proactive, provides personalized service, delivers value beyond expectations, offers strategic advice, develops problem-solving skills, seeks customer feedback, meets deadlines and milestones, learns continuously, and identifies opportunities for cross-selling or upselling. They also develop strong crisis management skills, measure and showcase results, and focus on long-term relationship building. By consistently demonstrating these qualities and contributing to clients' success, an account manager can establish a strong and lasting partnership.

The way this is worded seems almost overwhelming at surface value. While I completely agree, a lot of this will come over time as you build your relationship with the client. You'll become more familiar with their personal and business brand, with their offer, with how people react to it so you can adjust accordingly, etc. It's essential to maintain communication though. I've seen clients that are so relieved to have someone who shows they care and are responsive over results. They want to know you're trying and care, which solid communication will show. Do take the time initially though to find out more about them, their industry, and their tone.

To become an indispensable account manager, focus on building strong relationships with your clients. Understand their business needs, goals, and pain points to offer tailored solutions. Be proactive in anticipating challenges and providing innovative ideas that add value to their operations. Communicate regularly, providing clear updates and being responsive to their concerns. Show reliability by consistently delivering on promises and going the extra mile. Stay informed about industry trends to offer relevant insights. By being a trusted advisor and showing genuine commitment to their success, you solidify your role as an essential partner.

I can't agree with this more. Communication is so critical to establishing a relationship with the client. That doesn't mean you have to be "reactive" to every email but respond back within a reasonable amount of time (I tell my Account Managers a few hours or 24 hours latest in case of emergencies as a professional courtesy). Just knowing there is someone they can depend on goes a LONG way. I like to have a light personal touch also that's not always just business. Even though these are business relationships, they're still relationships. They don't want to be just another cog in the wheel.

People buy from people that they like and trust. It's that simple. You earn trust by being a great listener, following up on your action items, checking in every so often, and by learning about your customer's business. If you simply take the extra time (because we are all busy) to get to know your client's business, you'll have a client for life.

Adding value for a client or end user doesn't necessarily need to mean excellent service, although that certainly does fall into this category. I also see adding value as the small incremental movements and suggestions you can make over the lifetime of a customer to consistently make things easier, better, etc. This means active listening, or thinking further outside the box then the solutions typically presented. This could also mean looking at a current feature and being able to manipulate it in a way that solves their issue, but not in a traditional way. Becoming their champion, and investing the time and energy and thought into their success always comes back ten fold.

This is huge to me. Not only establishing proper expectations but maintaining those as the campaigns progress. From the beginning, our service maintains weekly reporting and updates so our clients know what's going on, even if there isn't much to adjust. This also reinforces expectations and shows what we're doing to achieve the best results possible.

Always ask customers what you can do to be better, because they want to tell you. Ask them about their favorite experiences with other sales people or companies, and find something that they enjoy where you can add your special spice to the interaction.