The Unsung Heroes

They walk among us unnoticed. “Morning” you mumble their way while sipping your coffee, expecting no answer. They are just Account Managers after all… They are not sales who get the office bell ringing when closing new deals. They are not R&D who get the overwhelming “kudos” emails-thread when releasing a new product version.They are just Account Managers responsible for… managing accounts, not more. But recently I realized that they are the unsung heroes of the modern age of the Enterprise SaaS and Managed Services companies, and I decided to say a word about it.

In a SaaS company your customer is relying on your ability to deliver your service continuously – up time, response time, features, capabilities, enhancements, value. Unlike the old enterprise software, where the customers bought a software product after a limited trial for sometimes seven figures in advance, in SaaS a customer is paying on a monthly basis based on the actual use of your service. The reality changed – you are as good as your ongoing delivery, and you get paid only based on that.

In a Managed Service Company your responsibility is even higher. You customers are not only expecting you to make your technology available to them, but also to deliver on a business value that is the essence of your software. Here, your organization need to “live” the business of your customers and to use your people and platform to continuously deliver value to them.

For example, if you are a SaaS Analytics company, you will provide a platform to allow your customer to run their analytics, but if you are an Analytics Managed Services company your customer will expect you to actually monitor and analyze the data for them, and to provide ongoing valuable insights to their business. Different responsibilities.

The decision whether you are a SaaS company or Managed Service company is critical for the way you are building your organization and account management specifically as it has a big impact on your product and talent you hire.

Here or there, Account Manager are critical for your success. Every morning they sit down to their desks and start their long list of daily tasks including onboarding customers, integrating systems, monitoring use of your service, listening to customer needs, addressing additional requirements, assembling resources, solving problems, mitigating risk, identifying opportunities, and many more. A good Account Manager needs to be a “Jack of many trades”, and end of the day deliver one thing – the success of your customer.

But your Account Manager will be only as good as good as the infrastructure that supports her – the product (service) should be good, the R&D and Product Support should be responsive, and there should be a good match between what was promised to the customer and what you can actually provide. Above all, you as her CEO should back her and ensure that your organization is aligned to make her successful in her end goal – Customer Success.

A successful sales person might sign a customer and get the first payment, but a good Account Manager will keep these monthly payments coming and increase them over time.

Remember that without a strong Account Management and without your support, Service Cancellation is just around the corner, and in today’s “mobile” economy your service can be easily replaced by other vendors who are eager to take your business. And everybody knows that CHURN kills.

So respect and support the heroes of the day – the mighty Account Managers.

Peace out.