Obsession is a desirable trait in client relationship managers.
Professional services firms are quick to react when a major account goes back on the market.
What many firms don’t seem to understand is that the best defence is a good offence.
The time to start defending a key account is the day you win it, not the moment you realise you might be at risk of losing it.
Forget long-winded position descriptions. Protect and grow. That’s ultimately the role of a client relationship manager.
Protect means obsess over the client’s satisfaction with your firm, your people, your services, your service delivery.
Grow means obsess over how you might increase the revenue and, ideally, profitability of the account. How you might grow it geographically, by volume, by range of services, and so on.
Winning a large account is just the first step – and the easy part, in many respects. The real challenge is in managing your new client.
If your relationship managers aren’t obsessed, they’re probably not performing their role. And that means your firm is probably squandering an opportunity.
