Although you may love your clients, managing multiple clients simultaneously is an extremely difficult task.
It is difficult to master the constant feedback, unreasonable deadlines, approvals, as well as the incessant job of impressing clients daily in order to reach the target revenue.
It is a joy to have competent account managers on your team when you are in this situation.
A good account manager can help you maintain a long-lasting relationship between your agency and clients in order to increase revenue and customer satisfaction.
The account manager is the first point of contact between clients, marketing agencies and them. They help clients achieve their goals, resolve dissatisfactions, find business opportunities, and upsell.
A list of interview questions for account managers is essential if you want to find the right candidate.
Experts with many years of experience in the hiring of account managers have compiled a list of questions for interviewing account managers.
Get the complete list for interview questions in marketing to hire a strong marketing team.
And lo and behold!
Common Account Manager Interview Questions To Evaluate Soft Skills
You’re looking for someone who is able to manage the critical task of building new client relationships and keeping existing clients happy so that you can upsell.
This requires a high level of interpersonal and communication skills.
How can you determine if your account manager has the soft skills necessary to do the job?
These are interview questions for account managers that will help you evaluate the soft skills required of candidates.
- What motivated you to become a manager of accounts?
- What are your top 3 core values?
- How do you deal with rejections?
- Which account management strategy do you prefer?
- Which areas of account management would you rate as your best?
- What can you do to invest in yourself?
- Why would you like to work at our agency/company?
- How can you tell if you are going to add value to our product/service?
- What makes a place a great place to work?
- Which book inspired you the most?
- What accounts management blogs/influencers inspire you most? Why?
- What are you going to do your first few months as an account manager?
- What would happen if your performance is below average?
- What does the definition of “world-class worker” look like to you? Do you think you fit this definition?
- What was the best part about being a member of your team?
- How can you manage multiple shifting priorities while juggling them?
- What would you do if it were possible to do everything you want?
- What qualities and skills would your team look for in potential candidates if you had the chance to build one?
- Please tell me how you develop relationships with your coworkers.
- Please tell me about a time you were in conflict with a colleague or team member. What happened?
Interesting read: How to create a Social Media Questionnaire for New Clients
Interview Questions for Account Managers to Assess Skills and Experience
Even on the most mundane of days, an account manager may have to confront dissatisfied clients in order to resolve them.
It is therefore important to find someone who has experience in conflict resolution situations. This will help to diffuse potentially explosive circumstances and to re-establish the relationship.
Once you have evaluated the candidate’s soft abilities, it is time to assess if they have the experience and skills necessary to be a productive manager.
“Aside from technical prowess I also enjoy a little bit of quick/ critical thinking. I ask them to explain the situation and then find a solution. It’s usually a sign that someone is able to give me at most a decent answer when I am under pressure during an interview. Apart from that, I try and understand their communication style em>
Taylor Ryan, CEO KlintMarketing.com
- Are you familiar with managing accounts for smaller agencies?
- Do you know the industry we work in?
- Could you make a suggestion for improving a company’s X relationship with a client of Y?
- Did you ever make a mistake that cost a customer? What lessons did you take away from this experience?
- What are your steps to build strong relationships with key clients
- Which communication method do you prefer: in-person, by email, or over the phone? Why?
Leadership, organization, sales and communication are some of the essential skills for this job. These questions are used to get a sense of the candidate’s knowledge and experience in customer management. This includes their record, successes, and responses to customer management problems. To be a successful organization, you need to have high organizational competencies. Expertise with CRM software is essential. .”
Tina Hawk, SVP Human Resources at GoodHire
- How do you approach a client first? What information do you need before you make contact with them?
- What are your options when you fall behind in your revenue targets
- Which CRMs, such as Salesforce or Gainsight, have you used?
- How can you keep organized and manage multiple client accounts simultaneously?
“I am looking for skilled, friendly account managers with the interpersonal skills to persuade clients to continue to upgrade their marketing plans and to purchase additional services from us. Client retention costs are much higher than those for client acquisition. Businesses make more money by upselling clients than by converting prospects em>
Devin Schumacher, founder, SERP Co.
- How can you upsell clients who are already customers?
- From your previous position, describe your customer portfolio.
- Please tell me about the most rewarding (end-to end) project that you have worked on.
“I’m always looking for account mangers who can be proactive in managing the client-manager relationship. The relationship with clients is a large part of an account manager’s job. I want to ensure that the person I hire is able to communicate with clients .”.
Gabriel Dungan, Founder & CEO, Viscosoft
- Please tell me about a time when you had to deal with a unhappy client.
- What experience do you have in creating progress and sales reports?
- How can you catch up if you fall behind your goals?
Communication with clients is an integral part of any account manager’s job. It is best to know how the candidate builds client relationships upfront. To determine if a potential account manager is able to draw conclusions and implement the best solution after failure, I ask a few questions. While I don’t expect my employees to be perfect, let’s not forget that mistakes can teach us something em>
Tomek Mlodzki, CEO & Co-founder, PhotoAiD
- How can you create a long-lasting client relationship?
- What would you do to turn them around if they told you that a key client has decided to end their business relationship with you?
- What is the best way to respond to a potential client who doesn’t want to talk? Let’s say they tell you that they are busy the next few months. What would you do?
- What point does it become worthless to pursue a prospect?
Your clients will first connect with you and your brand through your account managers. The candidate must be able to identify the problems of clients and then report them to the management team. Aside from that, I’m interested in how candidates respond to criticisms. This job requires emotional and analytical intelligence to accept disapprovals and provide constructive data-backed solutions em>
Lauren Cook-McKay, Marketing Director, Divorce Answers
- Imagine that you have a client who thinks you did a great job marketing their business. But they disagree. What data would you use to prove that your work is making an impact?
- Let me tell you about a time that you helped to improve a product or upgrade based on feedback from clients.
Interesting read: How To Write A Client-winning Social Media Proposal + [FREE] Template
Conclusion
Your agency’s overall revenue is directly affected by account managers.
They will help you build and sustain long-lasting relationships with your clients.
This set of interview questions for account managers will help you select the best candidate to be your next manager.
This is all to make working with clients easy. If you are sure, don’t mess up your client’s social marketing experience through messy management.
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