A relationship manager is responsible for maintaining strong relationships with an organization’s key clients or customers. Their primary role is to be the main point of contact between the client and the company, ensuring high levels of client satisfaction and loyalty. Relationship managers play a crucial part in customer retention and revenue growth.
What does a relationship manager do?
The key responsibilities of a relationship manager include:
- Managing an assigned book of business, portfolio of clients or customer accounts
- Building and maintaining strong relationships with clients through ongoing communication and service
- Acting as the key liaison between clients and internal teams across the organization
- Understanding clients’ businesses and objectives to identify upsell or cross-sell opportunities
- Educating clients on new products, services or business strategies
- Resolving client complaints or issues in a timely manner
- Collaborating with sales teams to close deals and achieve revenue targets
- Providing regular reporting and analytics on client accounts performance
- Coordinating with other lines of business to deliver an enhanced client experience
Essentially, relationship managers oversee the client lifecycle from on-boarding to retention and growth. They aim to maximize the value of each client to the organization.
Hard Skills Needed
To succeed as a relationship manager, there are several hard skills that are extremely valuable:
- Sales skills – Ability to build rapport, negotiate, close deals and achieve sales quotas or revenue targets.
- Product/industry knowledge – Deep understanding of the products, services, solutions and competitors within their industry.
- CRM platforms – Experience using CRM software to manage pipelines and client accounts.
- Account management – Organizing, analyzing and optimizing multiple client accounts.
- Data analysis – Reviewing reports and analyzing client data to identify trends, risks and opportunities.
- MS Office – Highly proficient in platforms like Excel for modeling, analysis and reporting.
- Communication – Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
- Consultative selling skills – Ability to provide solutions by understanding client needs.
Having the right technical abilities is critical in this role to manage client relationships, strategize growth and deliver value.
Soft Skills Needed
Relationship managers also require some key soft skills and attributes to excel:
- People skills – Building rapport through listening, trust and effective communication.
- Problem-solving – Logically diagnosing issues and providing solutions.
- Teamwork – Cross-collaborating with sales, product specialists, service teams etc.
- Multitasking – Juggling multiple client accounts and priorities.
- Presentation abilities – Confidently pitching to clients and delivering reports.
- Attention to detail – Carefully analyzing data, reports and client materials.
- Time management – Prioritizing tasks and managing schedules effectively.
- Stress tolerance – Remaining composed under pressure during challenges.
Having empathy, creativity and commercial awareness are also vital soft skills in this customer-facing role.
Typical Backgrounds
While there are no set educational requirements, most relationship managers have at least a bachelor’s degree in a relevant field like:
- Business Administration
- Marketing
- Communications
- Account Management
- Finance
Beyond education, many come from sales backgrounds and have prior experience in roles like:
- Account Manager/Executive
- Sales Representative
- Customer Success Manager
- Business Development Manager
- Key Account Manager
This client-facing experience equips them with the relationship-building abilities and sales acumen needed to excel as a relationship manager.
Key Performance Indicators
Relationship managers are typically measured and evaluated based on the following key performance indicators:
- Client retention/attrition rates
- Growth in revenue or book size
- Cross-sell and upsell revenue achieved
- Client satisfaction metrics
- Sales pipeline growth
- Lead conversion rates
- Average deal size
- Efficiency metrics like number of client touches
Hitting established quotas and benchmarks for these KPIs is essential for a relationship manager’s success.
Pros and Cons
Some of the key pros and cons of being a relationship manager include:
Pros
- Opportunity to build strong client relationships
- Facilitating client success and growth
- High earning potential from commissions
- Flexibility to manage your book of business
- Visibility and exposure working with key accounts
- Chance to expand commercial skills like sales
Cons
- Pressure to hit sales targets
- Time-intensive role with some travel
- Stress of being accountable for retention
- Unpredictable hours responding to clients
- Dealing with client complaints and issues
- Highly metrics-driven with quotas
Conclusion
A relationship manager role is ideal for someone seeking a customer-facing position that allows them to form meaningful connections, drive key accounts and achieve business growth. It offers the opportunity to leverage sales abilities, commercial insight and people skills to maximize client relationships over time. While demanding, it enables driven professionals to take ownership of an account portfolio and reap the rewards of revenue gains and client retention. With the right combination of client management experience, strategic thinking and consultative selling skills, a career as a relationship manager can be highly rewarding.
