If you perform well as a key account manager, you can be handsomely rewarded. You might receive great referrals, accolades from your superiors, and solid reviews from delighted clients. There’s much more to your client relationships than a few messages back and forth here and there.

It’s not enough, as a KAM, to simply show up each day. Perhaps you find yourself wondering how well you do your job. Below are six signs that you’re doing a good job as a key account manager.

1) Regular Flow of Referrals

If you find yourself receiving phone calls and e-mails from new customers who tell you that they were referred to you by one of your key accounts, take that as a good indicator of your performance. Referrals are significant because 54% of executives and sales professionals consider customer referrals to be the best source of leads. Conversion is more likely to occur because the referring source has provided a trusted testimonial. In other words, your efforts have impressed your clients enough for them to go out on a limb to recommend your firm. This doesn’t happen every day.

2) Your Key Accounts Proactively Renew their Contract

Some KAMs are reactive with their duties, especially when contract renewal time rolls around. They might even wait until after a contract expires to then contact clients to try to convince them to renew their contracts. If your customers are proactively reaching out to you in advance of their contract renewal date, then that is a good indicator that you are doing an excellent job of managing their accounts. They want to keep the relationship with you going. On a side note, if you are a high achiever, there stands a chance you might even beat them to this step – as being proactive on your own part is what quality that makes you a cut above the rest.

3) Ongoing Recognition and Awards

Recognition by colleagues and executive staff does not occur by accident. Awards and recognition are earned by KAMs who consistently exceed the expectations that have been set for them. They are proactive, efficient, professional, and are experts at solving problems. If you are being recognized for your hard work, then you are performing well.

4) Clients Seek Your Advice in Other Areas

Much the way referrals work for you from you key accounts, the same can apply to your clients the other way around. How so? If you are a software specialist who frequently receives calls from your clients asking for recommendations on phone systems, laptops, and other items you do not handle, you can interpret these requests as a sign that you are doing a good job. Requests for recommendations of other goods and services your clients know you don’t manage, means they trust your expertise and view you as a valuable resource. Think about when you last went to purchase a vehicle or a phone. Did you ask someone who has never driven a car what they’d buy? Probably not. You likely asked the neighbor or friend who has driven many automobiles and seems to know a little bit about them.

5) You Don’t Create Fires Others Have to Put Out

If others on your team rarely have to get involved with your key accounts due to mismanagement, then you are likely doing an excellent job. Sometimes, no news is good news for your executive team. It means that you are proficient at finding creative solutions to problems and become a master at preventing them from occurring. This is likely due to your consistent ability to follow up at the right times, anticipate client needs and provide creative solutions for when things start to turn south. Even if there are misunderstandings or missed deadlines, your ability to stay calm, collect, and professional might be what keeps your client from becoming a squeaky wheel.

6) Your Peers Look to You for Advice

When your fellow KAMs and your superiors turn to you for suggestions and guidance, they are conveying their confidence in your job performance and want to take some of your best practices and implement elsewhere in the company. They recognize you as a leader and trust your decision-making prowess. In short, they see the outstanding job you are doing and want to follow your path to success.

Takeaway

In the world of key account management, it is not sufficient to simply perform your job responsibilities with an average level of execution. Being an above-average KAM requires you to want to be good at your job. The presence of the six signs above is a reliable way to measure how well you are performing in your position. Even if you can check these off with ease, it doesn’t hurt to review them from time to time. After all, it’s consistently striving for excellence that got you to where you are today, not complacency and mediocre actions.

Curious to see how you can take your Key Account Management skills to the next level? Download this helpful ebook on how to create powerful account plans for your key customers or sign up for a demo of Kapta.

We have turned the topic of key account management inside out, upside down, and backwards, trying to understand exactly what it takes to be an effective key account manager. We’ve discussed the importance of account planning, proactive strategizing, goal tracking, and Voice of Customer. However, we have rarely discussed the underlying interactions that drive a successful and solid key account relationship.

As with any customer-facing role, there is so much more to building relationships than strategic planning and proactive account management. Although those aspects are critically important to managing key accounts, the long-term success of a key account relationship often boils down to the rapport felt between the key account manager and their contacts.

So, what’s the key to building a stronger rapport with your customers? Empathy.

The Empathy Index

Recently, we ran across a news piece on the Harvard Business Review blog that suggests the importance of empathy in the workplace. The article ranks companies by their score on the Empathy Index, which measures a brand’s ability to understand its emotional impact on others and make changes accordingly.

The top five most empathetic companies included Facebook, Alphabet (Google), LinkedIn, Netflix, and Unilever—all leaders in their respective industries. The five least empathetic companies were Bharat Petroleum, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, ICICI Bank, Severn Trent, and Bharti Airtel.

This study used different metrics across the categories of ethics, leadership, company culture, brand perception, and public messaging through social media. Interestingly, the authors found a direct link between the Empathy Index, as calculated in the study, and a company’s profitability.

According to the article, “The top 10 companies in the Global Empathy Index 2015 increased in value more than twice as much as the bottom 10, and generated 50% more earnings (defined by market capitalization).”

As intangible as it may be, empathy can and does have an impact on the success of a business. As a key account manager on the front lines of your organization, empathy could be the secret ingredient that enables you to build stronger and more successful relationships with your most valuable customers.

Key Account Management and the Link to Empathy

Though key account management and business branding are two very different things, this concept of using empathy to build trust and strengthen relationships applies to nearly every aspect of a business. Key account customers want to feel like you are their ally, someone on their side, listening to their concerns and advocating for their needs. And this is where empathy comes in.

One of the most important parts of building and sustaining long-term relationships with key accounts is good communication, rooted in empathy. This means actively listening, thoughtfully answering, and considering the emotional context of your conversations with your customers.

Did they seem agitated when talking to you about missed goals? Did they seem hesitant to switch strategies or test a new product? Or, perhaps, did the news of a new feature leave them excited and grateful for your help? Looking beyond a customer’s words and focusing on their emotional cues can give you deeper insight into your key account relationships and enable you to change your strategy accordingly.

Empathic communication allows you to demonstrate to your key account contacts that you genuinely care about their business and its success. This type of communication makes your customers feel heard and demonstrates that you’ve gone out of your way to understand things from their perspective.

Key account managers are in a unique position to positively (or negatively) affect customers’ perceptions of your company. Therefore, key account managers need to be excellent listeners; they should be models of empathy and responsiveness. They should take pride in easing customers’ pain points and working to find solutions to their problems. By taking a more empathetic approach to KAM, key account managers will foster more meaningful and trusting relationships with their customers.