How to Lose Your Clients: Account Management
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If you are wondering how account management could cause you to lose a client, please pay close attention. In my experience, account management is almost as important as results. Clients typically terminate accounts when they are confused or just plain frustrated with you. What are the common account management mistakes you should avoid? What are the best tips for success? Read on!
Account Management Mistakes You Should Avoid
Not writing a fresh email. One of the biggest mistakes I see people making is sending an email to their client with all of their internal correspondences included. In other words, they went back and forth a few times with colleagues, and instead of writing a fresh new email, they just replied to the client from the last email they received from their colleagues. This allows the client to see what you are saying back and forth to one another. Depending on what was said, you could really end up with your foot in your mouth.
Not being prepared. It’s so easy to just copy and paste what someone else said to answer a client’s question. The problem is, most of the time we don’t really read what they wrote or get involved in the conversation. Next thing you know, the client is calling you to talk to you (his/her account manager) and you have no idea what is going on. They might have follow up questions with regards to the multivariate test you are running. Do you even know what they are testing or what the timeline is? You can really make a fool of yourself, and the company, if you aren’t careful here.
Not clearly defining roles. As account manager, the client expects to work with you – and only you. It is almost pointless for you to act as account manager if you are putting them in contact with your SEO, your PPC person, your usability expert, and your analytics analyst. Now the client has to try and keep five people straight. This will really stress the client out, and things won’t get done. If there is one person they work though, they’ll be more responsive and they’ll be less stressed.
Not staying in contact. As the account manager, the client is relying on you, and only you, to stay in contact with them. You should be prepared to keep them up to date with progress reports. Some projects won’t require as much input from the client, by providing them with these updates they’ll know that you are working hard for them.
How to Succeed as an Account Manager
The best tip? Make sure you don’t make the mistakes listed above. Clients are looking for three things from you:
1. Results
2. Communication (with the client)
3. Internal communication
If you can provide them with insurance on those three things, you’ll be off to a great start. My only other tip would be to never lie to a client. You’ll only dig yourself in a deep hole and put yourself, your colleagues, and your company at risk. While you may not like the mistake you made, you should always fess up. There are many ways to recover from a mistake, and lying isn’t one of them.
March 11th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
I like your writing style. Looking forward to reading more from you.
- Sue.
March 13th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Great advice. As someone who has spent his career in client service, both with large advertising agencies and search shops, I cannot tell you how true this is.
March 13th, 2008 at 9:55 am
I have been an account manager for over 15 years,(with a variety of companies in several industries)and I have to say I would agree with the points in this piece. I would also add that excellent communication skills and a well honed sense of humour are also essentials!
Now if only we could set the clients some guidelines too…..
March 13th, 2008 at 10:41 am
@Tony and Rachel - I’m glad you’ve also found that these tactics work. I’ve seen so many people commit one or more of the mistakes above and as a result, they spend most of their time putting out fires.
March 13th, 2008 at 11:09 am
i believe being a good account manager requires a definite skill set and aptitude for the role, and that once you have cracked it you should be able to transfer your skills into any industry where a good AM is needed. I STARTED in media and publishing, but have also been an AM in travel retail and now software, SEO and SEM! The principles remain the same, and i just have to make sure I get up to speed as soon as possible on the industry. This may require extra OOH work, but how can you do the job if you can’t understand the needs of the client?
I always think though the freal key is in the name. We MANAGE the client- that is their expectations, and their responses to us and our work and companies, good and bad. We stay in control.
ps OOH out of hours, in case you wondered!
pps nice to see us AM’s get a mention!!!
March 13th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Hello pratt..^^…I’m new here in your site…when I saw the follow me in Twitter note on top of the page, I clicked..I was surprised I was already following you..^^..by the way, I’m yojspew in Twitter..^^..I’m just glad to come across your post today in Sphinn.com..^^
Speaking of your post..I agree with you…it is really important to have an open communication between the client and the account manager..that way, both parties know what the other wants…also it could help in avoiding conflicts between them..^^
March 13th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
@Rachel - I think you are spot on. It is really tough to develop these skills, and you really have to work at them. It helps if you have prior experience with this type of thing, too.
@IMJ - I’m glad you were able to make your way here, and thanks for following me on Twitter! Give me a shout sometime.
March 14th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Well done, particularly the part about the progress reports. Especially in the SEO game–where it’s impossible to make guarantees. This way you can say, “look, I can’t possibly make promises about your search engine rankings, but I can promise you regular reports to keep you in the loop.” This kind of data can be pulled from all kinds of sources, and allows both parties to make snap decisions when needed.
March 14th, 2008 at 7:19 am
Thanks, Paul. I couldn’t agree more about not being able to promise rankings. As long as you can demonstrate the progress you are making to the client, they will stay a happy camper.