Managing the Relationships with Corporate Customers

The marketing staff of several major banks now include an account manager. His essential task is the successful handling of a relationship with a corporate client over a period of time. He will have a sound technical understanding of banking, well‐developed social skills and an ability to work creatively on his own. Unlike the advertising account manager the emphasis of his work is likely to be placed on conforming to established procedures. He will have to operate on many different levels within his customer's organisation. His role is that of a team leader dependent on a whole cross‐section of his corporate resources for support. Three broad streams of research exist which can contribute to a deeper understanding of managing the corporate customer: research into the selling process itself, research into the marketing of services, and research into the major sale. A model in ten stages is suggested that can be used to describe an account manager's job. At each stage an objective/key task is defined, the particular responsibilities of the account manager, the tangible outcome and the skills needed. A second model comprising four stages in managing communications comprises the ideas “listen”, “champion”, “extract” and “display”.