An account manager can be anyone assigned to take care of numerous aspects of a particular customer’s account. If more than one person is assigned to a particular account, the account manager would supervise each person or each group of people. Responsibilities for account manager jobs include filling sales orders, processing returns, handling customer service, and informing the customer of new products, pricing or policies. Turnover for account manager jobs is relatively high, as is the availability of new jobs.
The end goal of any account manager is to take care of the customer. This might involve any aspect of the business relationship, from logistics issues to invoicing. While the majority of account manager jobs involve some kind of sales, some account manager jobs involve only customer service.
Customers who walk into a retail store and purchase items off the shelf are not typically assigned account managers. These are usually reserved for large distributors or for customers who are buying large-ticket items. When high-volume sales or repeat ordering is involved, a company may choose to hire or assign an internal account manager who would oversee the account. This is both to ensure that the customer is given adequate, if not exceptional, customer service, and to attempt to increase or maintain sales.
A perfect example of account manager jobs can be found within the advertising industry. An account manager for an advertising company is assigned one or more accounts which are businesses that either are currently purchasing advertising or have the potential to purchase advertising. This account manager will attempt to make contact with the potential or current customer that is the decision maker. Once the relationship has been established, the advertiser now has one person to call upon to handle all of its needs.
From this point, the advertiser calls upon the account manager whenever there is a need. This might be for a new advertising campaign or for a change to an existing one. It might be because there is an issue with billing or the price of certain advertising. Whatever the problem, the account manager should have the answer.
Those assuming account manager jobs usually have supporting staff within the company to handle day-to-day needs, like duplicate invoices or requests for data. It is important that the customer has one point of contact within the company to whom he can address all his needs, whether or not the account manager does it himself or delegates the task to another. A good account manager is the sole contact for a customer and is ultimately responsible for all the customer’s needs.