An account manager plays a critical role in maintaining strong relationships with existing clients and growing business opportunities. They act as the main point of contact for important accounts by managing contract negotiations, resolving issues, identifying upsell opportunities, and ensuring client satisfaction.
Crafting an effective account manager job description is key to attracting top talent for this client-facing, revenue-impacting role. This comprehensive guide provides step-by-step instructions on how to write an account manager job description. It also includes actionable examples and templates you can customize to meet your company’s unique needs.
Contents:
An account manager is the main point of contact between a business and its clients. Account managers are assigned to important client accounts to foster relationships, resolve issues, identify opportunities, negotiate contracts, and achieve mutual growth and profitability.
The primary responsibilities of an account manager include:
Managing Client Accounts
Relationship Building & Client Retention
Administrative Tasks
To be successful as an account manager, the following experience, core competencies, and soft skills are required:
Experience & Education
Core Competencies
Soft Skills
By serving as the trusted advisor, educator, problem solver and growth strategist for named accounts, account managers play an integral role in, retaining and growing business revenue through client relationships.
Retaining existing clients costs a fraction of acquiring new ones. As a client’s main point of contact, the performance of an account manager directly impacts client lifetime value, retention rates, and referral opportunities.
Specifically, skilled account managers positively influence organizations by:
Increasing Profit Margins
By identifying cross-sell and upsell opportunities, negotiating favorable contract terms, reducing churn risks, and maintaining high client satisfaction levels, account managers directly expand profit margins.
Improving Client Retention Rates
Serving as an advocate helps account managers proactively address issues before they become reasons for client churn. By fostering positive interactions and managing expectations, retention rates tend to increase.
Generating Referrals & New Business
Account managers develop a deep understanding of entire industries by interacting with many clients. This positions them to connect contacts, facilitate introductions, and leverage relationships to drive referrals and new sales opportunities.
Providing Product/Market Feedback
Through frequent high-touch interactions, account managers gain direct product and industry insights they can relay to inform strategic decisions across the organization from marketing to product development.
Strengthening Company Reputation
By handling requests and complaints promptly and keeping clients satisfied, account managers strengthen external perception and brand affinity which drives sales.
In summary, skilled account managers are invaluable assets due to the direct financial impact they have through higher lifetime customer value, referrals, better contract terms, cross-selling, and reduced churn.
When drafting an account manager job description to attract top talent, be sure to communicate important details around day-to-day duties, experience, competencies, education requirements and soft skills required to excel in the role.
This account manager job posting template provides a blueprint you can customize:
Account Manager Job Summary
[Company Name] is searching for an account manager to foster relationships, grow revenue, and boost customer lifetime value from a portfolio of key client accounts. The account manager will act as a trusted advisor by overseeing contract processes, anticipating needs, addressing issues, identifying cross-sell opportunities, and ensuring client growth and profitability targets are met.
Account Manager Responsibilities
Account Manager Requirements
Account Manager Skills & Competencies
This customizable template covers the key components that should be included in an account manager job posting to attract the best candidates for the critical client-facing, profit-driving role on your teams. Be sure to highlight any must-have industry experience, specialized competencies, language skills, education or personality traits that align to your company culture and client portfolio when drafting your unique job description.
When recruiting account managers, the responsibilities and day-to-day may vary significantly depending on the type of clients served and seniority of the role.
Here are examples of actual account manager job descriptions for common types of roles:
This example outlines the core duties and skillsets often required for more junior account manager roles:
Entry Level Account Manager Job Summary
We have an exciting opportunity for an entry level account manager to join our growing client account management team. You will be assigned an existing portfolio of transactional SMB accounts. In this client-facing role, you will handle inbound requests, educate clients on appropriate products and solutions, manage renewals and upsell opportunities. The ideal candidate thrives working directly with clients, has exceptional communication abilities, and is eager to grow into leadership roles managing strategic enterprise accounts long-term.
Primary Entry Level Account Manager Duties
Entry Level Account Manager Requirements
Advertising and digital marketing agencies often hire account managers to liaise between clients and internal creative teams. Key skills and areas of expertise for this role include:
Account Manager, Advertising Agency Summary
We are looking for an experienced Account Manager to join our agency and manage key client accounts. As the direct liaison between clients and internal creative teams, your responsibility will be maintaining positive client relationships, securing contract renewals, identifying growth opportunities, and ensuring projects are delivered on strategy, within budget and on schedule. To excel in this role you must have an advertising, marketing or public relations background with demonstrated client management experience.
Core Account Manager, Advertising Agency Duties
Must-Have Advertising Agency Account Manager Skills
For B2B companies, business account managers may be assigned a book of accounts based on territory, industry vertical or deal size. Key abilities for excelling in this strategic client advisor role include:
Business Account Manager Job Summary
[Company] is seeking an experienced business account manager to maximize revenue growth and client lifetime value from a portfolio of mid-market enterprise accounts. As the clients’ trusted strategic advisor, you will identify new business opportunities, oversee contract renewals, manage key initiatives and foster account growth by proactively addressing issues and delivering exceptional service.
Core Business Account Manager Responsibilities
Business Account Manager Requirements
For companies selling complex software, SaaS or IT managed services, technical account managers play a critical post-sale role guiding client adoption. Key abilities include:
Technical Account Manager Summary
We are hiring a Technical Account Manager to ensure seamless delivery, adoption and expansion of our products across a growing mid-market client base. As client onboarding experts, TAMs handle training, network integration assistance, monitor support issues and foster ongoing education and renewal initiatives well beyond initial implementations.
Core Technical Account Manager Responsibilities
Technical Account Manager Requirements
These examples illustrate how account manager duties may vary across entry-level roles focused on SMBs, specific vertical industries like advertising agencies, strategic enterprise client advisors, and technical customer onboarding specialists. Use these templates to inform your unique hiring needs.
With a well-crafted job description that clearly details your unique account manager duties and requirements, you can attract top customer-focused, relationship-oriented sales talent to maximize client lifetime value.