Account Manager/Account Management

The term account management refers to the coordination, billing, and evaluation of all activities undertaken by a public relations agency or firm on behalf of a client or client organization. Unlike the account executive (AE), who is in day-to-day contact with a client, the account manager (AM) acts as a higher-level planner and coordinator, working within the agency environment with various AEs and creative and media directors to assess the future needs of the client, to develop strategic plans to meet those needs, and to put in place evaluation strategies to determine the success or failure of programmatic initiatives. In agency tradition, AEs report to AMs. A central concern of the AM is to look for opportunities to grow the agency's business through the expansion of current work undertaken for the client, or by working with the client to develop new initiatives. Moreover, the AM may be responsible for several accounts at the same time.

As a senior member of the executive team, the AM also is responsible for initiating, nurturing, and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships between the agency and the client. Research indicates that these relationships follow a familiar pattern of growth and decline. The effective AM must understand and appreciate this process and be able to recognize the current phase of the relationship and how to alter that relationship, if necessary, to ensure that it is positive. Moreover, research has demonstrated that the dimensions of openness, trust, involvement, commitment, and investment are crucial in managing the agency-client relationship. In this context, “openness” is the degree to which the agency and the client share plans for the future with each other. “Trust” refers to the degree to which the agency or the client can be relied on to do what it says it will do. “Involvement” refers to the willingness of the agency to become actively involved in the business of the client. “Commitment” addresses the need to demonstrate an ongoing interest in helping the client organization achieve its goals. “Investment” concerns the amount of time and energy the agency is willing to put into maintaining the agency-client relationship. A simple “relationship audit” can provide an illustration of the state of the agency-client relationship as well as indicate areas for improvement.

Despite a substantial increase in the number of AM positions, many companies continue to report dissatisfaction with the ability of the AM to build sustaining relationships with strategic clients. To a large degree, responsibility for the inability to sustain a relationship is claimed to rest, not surprisingly, with the selection of a client. This usually can be traced to a “poor fit” between the agency's and the client organization's business.