How can you evaluate the account management skills of your team?

1 Define account management skills

Account managers are required to possess certain skills in order to build and maintain strong relationships with clients, understand their needs and expectations, communicate effectively, solve problems, and add value. These skills include communication, the ability to establish trust and rapport, negotiation, project management, analytical thinking, and strategic planning. Communication involves the capacity to listen attentively, ask questions, clarify information, and convey messages persuasively. Rapport requires trust, empathy, and understanding. Negotiation entails influencing and persuading clients in order to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. Project management is the capacity to plan, organize, and manage tasks and resources efficiently. Analytical skills involve collecting data and interpreting it for insights. Lastly, strategic planning involves aligning account goals with the practice's vision and strategy while identifying opportunities for growth and innovation.

2 Set account management standards

To evaluate the account management skills of your team, you need to have clear and consistent standards and expectations for what good account management looks like. You can use a competency framework or a performance appraisal system to define the account management skills and behaviors that you expect from your team members, and the criteria and indicators that you will use to measure them. For example, you can use a rating scale or a rubric to assess how well your team members demonstrate each skill or behavior in different scenarios or situations.

3 Use multiple sources of feedback

To get a comprehensive and objective view of the account management skills of your team, you should use multiple sources of feedback. Self-assessment, where you ask your team members to rate their own account management skills and identify their strengths and weaknesses, is one way. As a manager, you should observe, coach, and evaluate your team members' account management skills on a regular basis, providing constructive feedback and guidance. Additionally, you can use surveys, interviews, or testimonials to collect feedback from your clients on how satisfied they are with the account management service they receive. Lastly, you can ask your team members to give feedback to each other on their account management skills and share best practices and tips.

4 Analyze the feedback data

Once you have collected the feedback data, you should analyze it to identify the account management skills gaps and strengths of your team. To do this, SWOT analysis can be used to pinpoint strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your team's account management performance. Additionally, gap analysis can be employed to assess the current and desired levels of account management skills of your team. Lastly, benchmarking can be utilized to compare the account management skills of your team with the best practices or standards in your industry or sector. This will help you identify the areas where you can learn from others or improve your competitive advantage.

5 Develop an action plan

Based on the feedback data and analysis, you should develop an action plan to address the account management skills gaps and strengths of your team. Your action plan should include SMART goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Learning activities should also be designed to suit the learning styles and needs of your team members. Examples of learning activities include training sessions, workshops, webinars, one-on-one or group coaching sessions, mentoring, shadowing, and e-learning. The progress and results of your action plan should be monitored and evaluated with ongoing feedback and support given to your team members. The action plan should also be reviewed and updated as needed, with successes celebrated.