Relationship Management of Accounts Manager in a Financial Firm

This report provides an in-depth analysis of relationship management strategies for accounts managers within a financial firm. The report begins by defining the role of an accounts manager and their key responsibilities, emphasizing their function as a crucial link between the company and its clients. It then delves into the process of building client relationships, using XYZ organization as a case study, and outlining the collection of essential client information, including financial data, business operations, and future planning. The report emphasizes the importance of competitor analysis using SWOT and VRIO frameworks and highlights the significance of building trust through the ASIM matrix. Furthermore, it details methods for improving account productivity through up-selling, cross-selling, and consistent service support. Strategies to reduce financial burdens on clients are also examined, along with steps to improve service quality using the RATER model, and the importance of maintaining account loyalty. The report concludes with an examination of networking in sales, focusing on leveraging existing clients to expand the customer base and detailing the benefits of reciprocal events and activities. The report provides valuable insights into creating and sustaining strong client relationships in the financial services industry.

Relationship Management of Accounts Manager
Accounts Manager is one of the key personnel in a company who is responsible for
management of sales and relationships with clients of the company. Accounts Manager is not
someone who looks after accounts of the company rather he/she looks after the client’s
account which he/she is assigned with. Accounts Manager is like a thread between the
company and the client.
An Accounts Manager can be called as “communicator, relationship manager, advisor, sales
representative or executive and business development manager.” These all positions are
associated with an accounts manager because of multiple role playing.
Here are some of the key roles and responsibilities that he/she plays- [Payne, A.,et.al2006]
 Generating sales and revenue for the portfolio offering of the organization and meeting the
sales target.
 Identifying new business opportunity (new client) and setting up meetings.
 Identifying new sales opportunities in form of up-selling or cross selling from the existing
client base.
 Keeping records of sales, revenue and details of transaction of clients
 Establishing long term relationship through feedback and after-sales support system
 Manage and resolve conflicts and doubts of clients.
 Interact and support the sales team and other departmental team to retain clients for long.
 Helps in preparation of budget, financial planning and portfolio management of client.
Company Client
Accounts Manager

Although the roles and responsibilities varies with the nature of business, but these are some of
key roles that an accounts manager plays. [Mendoza, L. E.,et.al2007]
Task-1- Building Relationship with Accounts
As an accounts manager of a financial firm which deals with mutual funds, shares, bonds and
other financial instrument, I am presenting my approach to build relationship with customers.
To explain it properly, I am taking XYZ organisation (a reputed FMCG company in Australia) as
the case under study.
The relationship building starts with collection of general information of the client.
General information of client
Any business organization runs successfully only when the organization is able to retain the key
clients that are giving majority of business revenues. For my firm, XYZ Company is one of the
key client which gives around 10-15% of total business revenue every year. The client enrolled
our service a year back and has been consistent with us in various financial assets offering.
Here are the general information we require normally from the client- [Peppard, J. (2000)]
1. Client’s name, nature of business, registration, operation, key personnel details etc.
2. Business revenue such as sales and services and Profitability figures (ROI, ROCE, EPS
etc.)
3. Client’s financial credibility- Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement
4. Client’s area of interest in portfolio investment
5. Client’s customer base or key customers (if any)
6. Legal records
7. Corporate reports etc. [Buttle, F. (2004)]
Apart from that, some other information is also collected such as future planning and budgeting
of the client with respect to portfolio management.
In addition to general information, I prepare a consumer attractiveness factor index to get the
knowledge about whether the client is a good prospect or not for our business.

Customer Attractiveness Factors (CAFs)
Weight Customers
Attractiveness
Factor
1 Growth
potential
(Turnover or
profit)
2 Access to
new markets
or market
segments
3 Access to
new
technology
4 Reduction of
competitors
market share
or stronghold
5
Enhancement
of your brand
6 Contribution
to
organisational
learning
Total
Average
Score:
(Total of all
scores divided
by number of
customers
rated)

[Lucas, S.,et.al2006]
Information about competitors
Our organization is not the only one who is offering the financial products. There are several
other firms who may have similar or better offering to our firm. Thus to retain a key client, it is
important for me as accounts manager to keep an eye on competitor’s action. To assess our
firm’s capability with competitors, I follow 3 important strategic techniques which are-
1. SWOT analysis
2. VRIO framework
3. Relative Strength Factors matrix [Fincham, R. (1999)]
SWOT analysis- This analysis is based on identifying the key strengths and weaknesses of my
firm that lead to grabbing the opportunities in market and managing threat situations for the
business.
(Source-Wikipedia.in)
VRIO analysis- This analysis I apply for identifying the competitive potential of my organization
with competitors. This includes resources and capabilities that are put under 4 category
questions which are- Valuable, Rare, imitability and exclusivity to Organizational setting.

Source- managementmania.com

Relative Strength Factors- This is the matrix that tells what are the specific areas where my
organization is having competitive advantages and where the competitors are taking edge over
us. [Grönroos, C. (2007)]
Building trust with client
The trust factor is a very important aspect in relationship management. I apply ASIM or Account
Identification and Selection Matrix to know nature of client account.
The matrix says-
Relative Strength Factors (vs the Competition)
Weight (Competitors)
Relative Strength
Factors
You C-1 C-2 C-3 C-4
1 Brand strength
2 Portfolio
diversity
3 Investment
capacity
4 Technological
capability
5 Price position
6 Parent/Group
company benefits
Total

Source- market-equity.com
If we look at the matrix, the requirement of trust building lies in 2nd and 4th Quadrant i.e.
maintain and manage for cash. In these two cases, there is a dissatisfaction among the
customers. So what are the steps that can be taken to make their dissatisfaction level low and
satisfaction level high?
Here I follow few steps-
1. Know the interest or desire portfolio of the client before offering first.
2. Match the need of client with existing offering and be honest if no such offering is there.
Meanwhile, inform about the alternative offer to see whether client shows interest or not.
3. Allow customer to perceive the value of transaction without providing too much
information about cost, charges, services, advantages and disadvantages etc.
4. Don’t make a fake promise if it is not possible to deliver.
5. Have an open agreement of all the matters with the client to avoid conflict situations.
6. Take feedback and give support service constantly.
7. Take actions rather than giving excuse of for the problem or issues with client.
8. Don’t hesitate to express risk concerns and loss occurrence in services to the client. This
shows honesty and integrity.
9. Keep the promise always. [Carraher, S. M.,et.al2005]
Improve productivity of accounts
For the concerned client, I follow up-selling and cross selling as the opportunity to improve the
productivity of account. But for that, I look into the current state of client in the following
matters-
 Present portfolio
 Investment pattern
 Average transaction amount and no. of investments per month, quarter, half yearly and
yearly.
 Interest in any financial asset to include in portfolio

 Client’s client base who can be a good prospect for our business.
Apart from that consistent feedback and service support system are the two efficient tool that
I use to keep the productivity high. I also seek advices from relationship experts, R&D team,
financial department team etc. in order to find the feasibility of the client’s business with my
organization. [Hellman, P. (1996).]
Reduce financial burden
As a representative of the firm, it is my responsibility to bring cost effectiveness in client
business handling. To reduce the financial cost on client’s account, the following steps are
taken-
 Instead of paying personal visit all the time, if need and requirements of the client can be
addressed electronically (e-mail chat, video conferencing or social media) then cost of visit
and information collection will be reduced.
 All the client’s account details should be kept in electronic form in a secured network. This
will reduce cost of excess paperwork.
 Instead of offering single product, if multiple or combined offering is made, then cost will
reduce. For ex- client is offered full portfolio management.
 Taking feedbacks and speeding up actions to resolve conflicts will reduce cost of service to
client. [Rose, P. S.,et.al2012]
Quality of service improvement

I will prepare a RATER questionnaire for the client to know how far quality of service client is
receiving at present. The RATER matrix stands for- Reliability, Assurance, Tangibility, Empathy
and Responsiveness.
This will provide an idea of present service status thus on that basis, I will look for improvement
such as-
 Adding new financial instruments into offering
 Determining quality determinants of customer such as low-risk- high return
 Real-time customer support system (financial advices)
 Evidence-based financial service
 Feeding with new opportunities and growth prospects with service
 Developing long term relationship- family treatment
Account loyalty maintenance
Loyalty is the primary principle of accounts manager. It is the trust and confidence of client the
services that help in building stronger relationship. As an accounts manager, I follow the below-

Retaining the existing customer- Cost of searching a new customer is always greater to
retaining an existing customer. It is so because, the client knows about your offering and will
trust if your prior offering are good. To retain existing customer, I take constant feedbacks of
service, offering of services as per the requirement, necessary actions on account of conflict
without avoiding and more importantly treating customer as the part of organization. [Killeen
Jr, J. J.,et.al2001]
Make the client find the best for them- If the client is able to find best suited service by
themselves, then it will improve the trust and confidence on my firm. Thus instead of throwing
own choice, I would allow customer to find the best service which will improve loyalty.
Informal relation- Although it is not justified to have informal relationship with clients but this
can be used to increase trust and confidence of client. For ex-participating in their success and
encouraging in failure will help to develop strong relationship.
Task-2- Understanding Networking in Sales
XYZ Company is one of the major customer to our financial firm. The FMCG organization is not
only giving 10-15% of business revenue but also having a consistent investment in portfolio
services on quarterly basis. Mr. Joseph Bernard, the CEO of the company, is the representative
of XYZ limited who deals with us in portfolio service.
Existing client as a gateway to future clients
We can use the following group of people for expanding our business network-
1. Business partners of XYZ limited for the same portfolio service
2. Business customers for any financial service
3. Business suppliers or vendors
4. Employees and executives
5. Family and friends of Mr. Bernard at both personal and professional level
6. Any allied organizations associated with XYZ Company.

Once the relationship goes strong with Mr. Bernard then in subsequent days, the above
contacts can be collected to give varieties of financial services.
Will the above contacts helpful in developing client’s account?
This is quite obvious that if the existing client is happy with the service, he will do word of
mouth promotion for the services. If the other contacts join this financial firm, then of course
the other contacts will get benefit, but for the existing contact, the trust and confidence level of
the client will go up. I will also come to know more about the investment behavior of XYZ
Company and Mr. Bernard from the contacts. This will help in finding new offering for the
organization.
Reciprocal events and activities with XYZ Company
As the organization is a key customer and it can bring a significant number of clients into our
customer base thus the client can be engaged in bringing more clients from their contact in the
following manner-
 XYZ Company will get relaxation on cost of processing and service up to 25% if they get
at least 5 clients within next 6 months.
 XYZ will receive commission @5% on each client engagement with the financial firm.
The commission will depend on amount of client investment.
 If XYZ brings 10 clients within 1 year, all additional charges on financial services will be
waived for next 1 year.
 The client’s account will be treated as “top most priority’ if their and their suggested
clients provide a business of $100 million investment by next 1-2 years.
Importance of reciprocity and its requirement
One of the most standout advantage of reciprocity of existing client service is that it increases
the customer base without any additional effort. Here the word-of-mouth promotion works. On
the other hand, as the existing client is getting benefit and finding their contacts too getting
advantages of services, loyalty (trust and confidence) on the organization is increasing.

Confidentiality of Customer
Confidentiality of client information is the top most priority in any business. If the
confidentiality clause breaches, it not only affects the client whose data goes vulnerable but
also it also affects the entire business as a whole because the other clients start perceiving data
breach and negative word of mouth spreads all across the market against firm’s service.
The confidentiality is maintained as-
 Agreement of confidentiality and privacy while entering into contract.
 Client information will be kept in a secured encrypted network.
 No information about client will be shared or used until permission is taken.
 The client is not allowed to share the policy agreement with any outside parties.
 The client will not share the transaction details to any outside parties.
 Only Mr. Bernard is authorized to carry financial transactions. If anyone acting on his behalf
will have to provide substantial evidences for that.
Communication management with client
Regular and uninterrupted communication is the primary requirement in client relationship
management. To maintain a smooth flow of communication, we use the following medium-
 Personal meeting with Mr. Bernard either at client’s place or at own office.
 E-mail conversation
 Conversation through client portal service for product enquiry, feedback, query etc.
 Telephonic conversation and video conferencing
 Encrypted social media talks
There is no particular pattern or application of using any of these media. We try to connect
through the medium which is available and suitable under the circumstances.
Task-3- Understanding Consultative Selling
Methodology for better understanding of client need

Being an accounts manager, it is my duty and responsibility to apply different methodology to
understand client’s need. There is no hard and fast rule for identifying the need and
requirements for the customer but in general we can follow the following methodology to get
clients-
Suppose the client is ABC Company (suggested by Mr. Bernard)
1. Client for clients- It is one of the best way to know the needs and requirements of the client
we are looking for developing relationship. If the client is suggested by another client, then
the need and requirements of the target client can be obtained better. Such method is quite
suitable and useful if the client is having relationship with other clients.
2. Personal contact- This is the usual manner of understanding the needs and requirements of
the target client. Here as accounts manager, I will approach the representative to know
their portfolio desire so that on that basis I can assure services.
3. Digital media solution- Today digital media is one of the successful medium in getting the
needs and requirements of the client. I will provide questionnaire or will talk with
representative over internet medium in order to know their requirements. In this case,
there is no need of personal visits as digitally queries and offerings are taking place.
4. Seminar and events- It is an indirect method of knowing the specific client need where the
client is called to a seminar or an event where the firm will present all of its new and
existing service offering so that client can find the service which can fit to the need.
Sometimes, such things help in identifying latent needs of the client.
Rapport with clients
It is important to have a rapport with your clients so that retention of client is possible. Keeping
rapport with client is basically refers to continuing healthy relationship with client. This can be
done in the following manner-
A 50-50 deal- It shouldn’t be a one-sided approach with clients. The agreement of services
should be such that both the selling party and the buying party will get benefit from the
dealing. For ex- Suppose the client is expecting 10% return in $1 million investment, then the

financial service should at least provide 8-10% on the investment amount if the firm is getting a
profit of 15-20% on it.
Law of self-disclosure- This goes with confidentiality and full disclosure principles. According to
this law, both the party will keep the key information confidential and secured and will also
disclose all required information, terms and condition to each other in the agreement. This
helps to establish trust and confidence relationship with each other.
The “We” factor- One of the best way to engage with client is to treat the client as business
partner. By allowing them space for giving opinion and suggestions, they will feel more engaged
with the firm.
Increasing credibility within the account and as provider
Openness about the service delivery and product performance is the key success factor for an
organization. A client’s need may not be same or similar for all the time. It will be different as
per the circumstances. Being a financial solution firm, it is important for the firm to understand
the changing need and applicability of existing offering to the need fulfillment. The following
are the steps that can be taken for improving credibility within accounts and as provider-
1. The firm is providing financial solutions to all kind of customers as per the need. There is a
fixed investment limit and risk of loss factors associated with each financial products and
services that customers need to accept. - This helps in spreading financial awareness to the
people before making investment.
2. Client is informed about the potential benefits and losses that each product and service
carries. This removes the doubts and dilemma in customer regarding financial instruments
and services.
3. The financial analyst and management is constantly looking for new financial services and
product offerings for the customers to suit their investment pattern.
Identifying Challenges and difficulties in accounts
There can be several issues with a client while having a portfolio service. The learning about
issues and challenges from the firm side, these steps can be followed-

Customer is not responding- This is the first symptom of the client dissatisfaction where the
customer is avoiding you most of the times and even if responding, he/she doesn’t listen new
products and services offering. This can happen if the client is not happy with existing portfolio
services. It can also happen that the client has suffered a severe crisis at personal or financial
level which the firm didn’t know about.
Negative feedback- Even if the product or service is good, still negative feedbacks can come
from the client. This can be another sign of issues. This normally happens when the client hasn’t
got what he/she was expecting or faced severe financial loss.
Too much queries and questions- A reasonable questions and queries are positive sign of
engagement but over that it is a sign of confusions and dilemma regarding services acceptance.
This happens when the client hasn’t understood services properly. This can later raise
dissatisfaction of services.
Change in investment behavior- Suppose a customer has been investing $10000 quarterly on
regular basis over last 1.5 years but since last 6 months, he hasn’t made a single investment.
This is a sign of lack of trust in service delivery. Or it may happen that any competitor has taken
away the client investment from us.
Issues with the existing account and how to deal
ABC Company is like XYZ, one of the key customer for the financial firm. But, unlike XYZ, ABC
has not been consistent with the investment behavior. Over the last 8 months, the investment
they made is having a high degree variance. Even since last two months, they haven’t made any
investment. When our team tried to connect to the representative, they reported financial loss
from operation despite their report saying profitability.
This reveals that they may have the following issues-
1. Unsuited portfolio
2. Loss on financial investment
3. Dissatisfaction of financial advisory service
4. Higher expectation

How will we deal with it?
1. Feel hard- if customer feels something wrong about product and services, we quickly
respond to their problem. Immediately our employees start to act upon portfolio to find
problem and fix it as soon as possible. Customer is taken as a part of solutions.
2. Time- we value the time of customer, thus we act within 1-2 hours regarding complains and
query without ignorance of even a small issue.
3. Fair deal- continues adjustments are done to portfolio of customers if they don’t feel it
suitable.
4. A little extra- additional offerings, special care, discount, profit sharing etc. are given to
settle problems with customers
If we can get at least $100000 investments over next 5 years, our business revenue will increase
by 2%. Moreover the client will benefit at least 10-12% ROI on their investments.
Solutions to client’s account without accounts manager input
These are the steps that can be taken to deal with such issues without putting own input-
1. At first customer value analysis will be carried out so that whether the client is an
important client or general client can be separated. Focus should be given more on
important clients i.e. who are regular with their investments. [Ryals, L.et.al2001]
2. Secondly, the financial team will think upon the present day portfolio issues and the
offerings that can be made to such issues facing clients.
3. In next step, advertisements or seminars or research will be conducted to know the clients
who are facing similar issues.
4. A proactive approach will be adopted by the relationship management team in order to
approach client before they express their need and desire.
5. A one-to-one client dealing service will be taken where each client will be given services
from a particular finance personnel only. This will improve client service delivery.
6. Adjustments to portfolio as per client desire without any fixed investment amount will help
in keeping the investment regular.

References
1. Grönroos, C. (2007). Service management and marketing: customer management in service
competition. John Wiley & Sons.
2. Carraher, S. M., Carraher, S. C., & Mintu-Wimsatt, A. (2005). CUSTOMER SERVICE
MANAGEMENT IN WESTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE: A CONCURRENT VALIDATION
STRATEGY IN ENTREPRENEURIAL FINANCIAL INFORMATION SERVICES
ORGANIZATIONS. Journal of Business Strategies, 22(1).
3. Hellman, P. (1996). The internationalization of Finnish financial service
companies. International business review, 5(2), 191-208.
4. Rose, P. S., & Hudgins, S. C. (2012). Bank management & financial services. McGraw-Hill
Education.
5. Killeen Jr, J. J., Stamler, G. H., Banford, C. K., Carney, P. M., Batavia, D. G., Gill-Fagan, H. A., &
Bennett, J. G. (2001). U.S. Patent No. 6,324,523. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office.
6. Fincham, R. (1999). The consultant–client relationship: Critical perspectives on the
management of organizational change. Journal of Management Studies, 36(3), 335-351.
7. Lucas, S., Lee, D., & Francis, A. (2006). U.S. Patent Application No. 11/261,140.
8. Buttle, F. (2004). Customer relationship management. Routledge.
9. Mendoza, L. E., Marius, A., Pérez, M., & Grimán, A. C. (2007). Critical success factors for a
customer relationship management strategy. Information and software technology, 49(8),
913-945.
10. Payne, A., & Frow, P. (2006). Customer relationship management: from strategy to
implementation. Journal of Marketing Management, 22(1-2), 135-168.
11. Peppard, J. (2000). Customer relationship management (CRM) in financial
services. European Management Journal, 18(3), 312-327.
12. Ryals, L., & Payne, A. (2001). Customer relationship management in financial services:
towards information-enabled relationship marketing. Journal of strategic marketing, 9(1), 3-
27.