As much as you love having them, managing relationships with multiple clients at once is a devilishly pesky task.
The constant feedback, unrealistic deadlines, approvals, and the unending job to impress the client daily to hit the target revenues is a tough nut to crack.
It’s delightful to have capable account managers in your team in such a situation.
An account manager is a necessary bridge to maintain your agency’s long-lasting relationship with the clients to upsurge revenue and customer satisfaction.
The account manager acts as the primary point of contact between clients and marketing agencies. They work on client goals, understand dissatisfaction, create business opportunities and help upsell.
If you aim to find a befitting candidate, you need to hold a list of the best account manager interview questions.
Our curated list of account manager interview questions comes from experts with years of experience in hiring account managers.
Plus, get your hand on the complete list of marketing interview questions to hire a formidable marketing team.
So, lo and behold!
Common Account Manager Interview Questions to Evaluate Soft skills
You are looking for someone who can handle the crucial task of fostering new client relationships while keeping the existing clients happy to upsell.
Now doing that requires some major level interpersonal and communication skills.
How do you figure your account manager has the necessary soft skills to get the job done?
Here are the interview questions for the account manager that will help you assess the mandatory soft skills of the candidates.
- What inspired you to pursue a career in account management?
- What are your 3 top core values?
- Tell me, how do you handle rejections?
- What’s your favorite account management strategy, and why?
- What areas would you say you’re better than most in account management?
- How do you invest in yourself?
- Why do you want to work for our agency/ company?
- How do you know you will add value to our product/ service?
- What is the difference between a good place to work and a bad one?
- What was the last book you read that inspired you, and when was it?
- Which accounts management influencers/ blogs inspire you the most? Why?
- What will you do in your first few months on the job as an account manager?
- What would you expect to happen if you underperform?
- What would the definition of the “world-class employee” mean to you? Would you say you match this definition?
- In what capacity was your team better with you being a part of it?
- How do you approach juggling multiple shifting priorities?
- What would you do if you could do anything you wanted?
- If you could build a team, what qualities and skills would you look for in candidates?
- Tell me how you build relationships with fellow employees.
- Tell me about a time when you had a conflict with a coworker or team member. What happened?
Account Manager Interview Questions to Evaluate Skills and Experience
On mundane days an account manager can confront situations to pacify a dissatisfied client.
Thus, it becomes essential to hire someone experienced in handling conflict resolution situations to defuse potentially explosive circumstances and re-establish the relationship.
So, once you are done evaluating the candidate’s soft skills, move towards assessing if the candidate has the necessary experience and skills to become a productive account manager.
“Besides technical prowess, I like to see a bit of fast/ critical thinking. I give them a situation and ask them a way out. If someone can give me at least a half-decent answer while being under pressure in an interview, that’s usually a good sign. Other than that, I try to understand their communication approach and previous experience.”
- Do you have previous experience with account managing for smaller agencies?
- Are you familiar with the industry in which we operate?
- Can you give a suggestion to improve a company’s X situation with a Y client?
- Have you ever made a mistake that cost you a customer? What did you learn from that experience?
- What steps do you take to ensure you build strong relationships with key clients?
- Do you prefer in-person, email, or phone communication? Why?
“Some of the skills necessary for the job are those relating to leadership, organization, sales, and communication. In asking these questions, we’re seeking to gain insight into a candidate’s experience with customer management, particularly regarding their overall record, success, and response to customer management challenges. Organizational competencies must be high, and expertise with CRM software is important to that end.”
- How do you approach a client for the first time, and what info do you need to have before the first contact?
- What steps do you take when you’re behind on your revenue targets?
- What experience do you have with CRMs such as Salesforce and Gainsight?
- How do you stay organized while managing multiple client accounts concurrently?
“I need skilled, personable account managers who have the interpersonal skills to convince existing clients to consistently upgrade their marketing plans with us and purchase more services. Client acquisition costs are significantly more than client retention. Businesses generally make more profit by upselling existing clients than converting prospects.”
- How do you typically upsell existing clients?
- Describe your customer portfolio from your prior position.
- Tell me about the most successful (end-to-end) project you’ve worked on so far.
“I am always looking for account managers who are proactive when it comes to the manager-client relationship. So much of the account manager’s role is about the relationship with the client. I want to make sure that whoever I hire has the communication skills to handle an unsatisfied client.”
- Tell me about an experience where you dealt with an unhappy and unsatisfied client?
- How much experience do you have with creating sales and progress reports?
- What steps do you take to catch up when falling behind your targets?
“Communication with clients is part and parcel of any account manager’s role. So, It would be best to be clear upfront about how the candidate creates a client relationship. I pull a few questions to determine if the potential account manager can draw conclusions and implement the best solutions after the failure. I don’t expect my employees always to be perfect, but let’s make mistakes that teach us something.”
- How do you build a long-term client relation?
- How would you turn them around if a long-term key client informed you they’re considering ending the business relationship?
- How do you respond to an uninterested potential new client in a cold call? Say, they tell you they are busy for the next few months. How would you react?
- At what point do you decide that a prospect is no longer worth pursuing?
“Account managers are the first touchpoint for your clients to connect with your agency or brand. That’s why the candidate must have the awareness to understand clients’ problems and report them back to the management team. Besides, I want to see how the candidates react to disapprovals. The job demands emotional and analytical intelligence to take disapprovals and give constructive data-backed solutions.”
- Let’s imagine you have a client with whom you believe you’ve done an excellent job with their marketing, but they disagree. What kind of data would you utilize to show them that the work you’re doing is making a difference?
- Tell me about a time when you contributed to a marketing campaign or a product upgrade or fix based on client feedback?
Conclusion
Account managers directly impact the overall revenue of your agency.
They strive to build and maintain long-term relationships with your key clients while mitigating the problems interfering with the client-agency relationship.
The above set of account manager interview questions ensures that you pick the most suitable candidate as your next account manager.
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