David Maister is the consultant whose hard-won wisdom has guided an entire generation of consultants. He hasn’t written about key account management very often but in this essay (which later became Chapter 19 in his 2000 book The Trusted Advisor) he lists some points that are as insightful as anything else he has written. The article is called, appropriately enough, “Key Account Management.”

 I’m going to list some of his insights verbatim and suggest strongly that you take a look at the article because it contains other real-world suggestions about managing key accounts.

Below are just a few of his points.

Key accounts’ commonly expressed concerns about suppliers:

• They are only interested in selling their services, not in solving our problems.
• They don’t do anything to make us feel that our business is important to them. We are taken completely for granted. They never call up to inquire how our business is doing. We only see them when they want to sell something.
• The quality of service is variable between departments and locations. We don’t have the patience for “adequate.” There’s no point courting us at HQ unless they’re impressing our people everywhere. We consult broadly with our executives before deciding whether to use them again.
• There are few signs that they’re really listening to us. They bring us generic issues faced by all companies. We want to hear about the specific opportunities for, and challenges facing, our company.
• We don’t want to be “romanced”: We already have many opportunities to go to fancy dinners or attend sporting events. They should focus on being useful to us, not on becoming our friends.

 Other insights:

• The most important decision that must be made in determining the role of the key account manager is which direction he or she should be facing. Should the key account manager be primarily a “luminary,” the firm’s representative to the client (i.e., facing outward), or should he or she be facing inward, acting as the client’s representative to the firm (perhaps even the client’s advocate), ensuring that all of the firm’s resources are brought to bear on the client’s problems?
  
• Naturally, both roles must be played, but the most effective key account managers I have encountered see themselves primarily in the second role. The logic of this should be clear: If you ensure that the client’s needs are met, the firm will benefit.

• Many key account managers see their role as carrying the primary burden of building the relationship. This is usually a mistake. The job is to manage the relationship, not to try and build it alone. The team of people serving a major client should be made up of individuals from all levels of the organization, from numerous disciplines and many geographic locations. The team must serve this client, and the team should be responsible for building the relationship. This creates a managerial task of no small proportions.
  

• Outstanding key account managers are always looking for ways to be helpful to their people before they need those people’s (often last-minute, emergency) assistance. They think about ways to make it easier for their team to serve the client. They give them tools, research, industry and client information, all in easily digested form.
  

• They arrange for someone to read, summarize and circulate every trade magazine, industry association publication and financial analyst report in their client’s industry, so that all team members are up-to-date about what’s going on in the client’s world.

All I can say is that if the points above do not offer some assistance with your key accounts, you must be in a unique market with unique accounts. Good reading. JSperry