Relationship Manager Job Description, Skills, and Salary
Get to know about the duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and skills requirements of a relationship manager. Feel free to use our job description template to produce your own. We also provide you with information about the salary you can earn as a relationship manager.
Who is a Relationship Manager?
A relationship manager is someone who works to enhance business relationships with partner firms and clients. This role is common within the banking industry. Relationship managers help clients to make the right decisions with their accounts and explain financial services to them.
A relationship manager is one whose sole task is to amend and create a healthy relationship between customers and the company. For a business to run smoothly between customers and the company you need a middleman to fill in as the bridge and a relationship manager is that middleman. He/ she is usually placed in a strategic position in the sales team and acts as a liaison among the duo.
The position of a relationship manager is mostly a senior level given to someone with the requisite experience, skills, qualifications, and experience.
A relationship manager manages relationships with clients of a company. If a client has any challenge, the best person to consult is a relationship manager. The role of a relationship manager is to help clients find solutions to challenges. In addition, they also boost the sales of a company amid opportunities, while some managers focus on working on the relationship angle, other relationship managers focus on developing sales plans. Client relationship managers are highly indispensable to most companies in the world today and they consistently strive to streamline a culture of collaboration and value. As a relationship manager, it is your responsibility to ensure that a healthy business strategy takes its right course in an organization.
Types of Relationship Managers
Business Relationship Managers
A business relationship manager is someone that specializes in the internal communication aspect of a business unit. In simpler terms, they look into the sales teams and check the price purchases, cost facets, and budget. Furthermore, they give out beneficial information that helps a company to effectively utilize resources.
The primary responsibility of this job entails the determination of data on how well your business is performing. As a manager, you have to look into ways to analyze communications, affix personal issues and negotiate offers whenever needed. This information can be used effectively to streamline company policies. A business relationship manager’s focal duty is to maintain and build positive and healthy relationships between businesses.
Client Relationship Managers
A client relationship manager is someone who builds relationships based on value and trust, not price. Trust is a very serious issue and it is not made but earned. They work closely with clients and help them to resolve issues. Another core function client relationship managers perform is identifying new sales opportunities and studying emerging trends in society. They also train, maintain, and aid some customers to get better benefits. Their job is so beneficial that both clients and companies benefit from it
Both the business relationship manager and client relationship manager facilitates good relationship so that businesses can highly maximize the value of relationships and maintain a good reputation.
Relationship Manager Job Description
Below are the relationship manager job description examples you can use to develop your resume or write a job description for your employee. Employers can also use it to sieve out job seekers when choosing candidates for interviews.
- Build and enhance relationships with customers, key suppliers, and partners
- Attend and resolve client complaints promptly
- Identify potential opportunities and inform the sales team to maximize such opportunities
- Assess the company’s policies to make sure clients get maximum satisfaction from their purchases
- Educate and inform clients about the company’s products and services
- Work with internal departments to ensure the company meets customer’s expectations
- Spearhead customer relationship management system
- Mentoring key business leaders or managers on how to improve their performance and get better results
- Informing the sales team if there is an opportunity for up-selling and cross-selling
- Creating a blueprint or action plan for the quarter year or future years
- boosting stellar customer service practices
- Communicating and merging the business priorities of both parties
- Enhancing and promoting a positive outlook for the company
- Collaborating and aligning creative ideas for building healthy relationships
- Gaining knowledge of competitors and conducting competitor analysis
Qualification
Although one does not need a degree to become a relationship manager but some employers may prefer someone who has a degree. To become a relationship manager, consider acquiring a degree in business administration, marketing, communication, or public relations. This will usually take three to four years to complete. In addition, you need to build on your customer service skills in an entry-level role in sales, customer service, administration, or a related field. A relationship manager must understand customer relationship management(CRM) and must possess interpersonal skills. These are some other qualifications a relationship manager needs:
- Problem-solving attitude
- Customer-oriented mindset
- Experience in sales or customer service
- Teamwork and leadership skills
- The aptitude of fostering a positive relationship
Essential skills
- Strong Negotiation and influencing skills: this is a requisite skill because some relationship managers also play the role of sales personnel in an organization and by having strong negotiation skills; they will be able to draw a lot of clients to a company and promote sales.
- Communication and listening skills: most of the role relationship managers play on the job set is to communicate and listen to clients. A relationship manager must be able to communicate effectively with customers and teammates. He must be very patient to always listen to customers and help them resolve issues.
- Awareness of customer needs: a relationship manager should always be customer-oriented and know what customer primarily needs. A relationship manager should be able to understand the industry and target customers that are the best way to draw customers.
- Ambition and Motivation: there’s nothing wrong with being ambitious and motivated in your sales and customer service, in the era of automated customer service and online support platforms, many of your customers will appreciate speaking to a relationship manager that cares about them. With a motivated, result-focus attitude and ambition; you will never struggle to connect with your customers.
- Sales Funnel Knowledge: Knowledge they say is power and one of the ways for relationship managers to acquire customers is by an automated, systematized sales funnel. This helps you to acquire new customers and also retain them.
- Interpersonal Skills: this has to do with the ability of relationship managers to resolve conflicts, both within the company and the business of the client.
- Computer and Technical Skills: relationship managers must be proficient in computer applications and the global net. In this digital age, most of the jobs of relationship managers may require them to connect with customers via social media such as Facebook, Whatsapp, and Twitter. There is a need for relationship managers to be highly proficient with social media tools to reach out to clients easily.
- An interest in financial products
- Paying attention to detail
- The ability to analyze and research information
- Good mathematical and computer skills
- Resilience
How to Become a Relationship Manager
- Acquire a Bachelor Degree
If you are considering a career as a relationship manager; you should earn a bachelor’s degree in any of the following courses: business management, marketing, communication, and public relations. By enrolling in these studies it will provide the experience and knowledge you need to succeed in the role. These degrees can help you to specialize in courses such as advertising, customer acquisition, accounting, data analysis, and public speaking.
- Get Certified
A degree may not be enough to make you a professional relationship manager; you may need to get certified. Certification can go a long way to supplement your degree nicely. You can get certified in Business Relationship Management (BRM), Certified Business Relationship Manager (CBRM), and similar certifications you can acquire as long as you do coursework and pass the exams. These professional certifications help you to focus on a specific aspect that will be highly beneficial to your role as a relationship manager.
Certification courses may help you develop strategic relationships with customers and broaden your mindset about the value of the business; how to understand and work with organizational change in policies and get your team to become part of your solution.
- Gain Experience in Customer Service
This is a requisite, as a relationship manager you need to gain experience in customer service because your job position mandates you to provide excellent customer service. You will want to make sure you gain enough experience handling different situations with customers including when a customer is angry when you have to answer complicated questions and do whatever it takes to make sure everything is done correctly. The more customer experience you gain, the more competent you will be for the role of a relationship manager.
- Improve your Negotiation Skills
The primary role relationship managers play is in negotiation. This has to do with building and maintaining relationships with customers on behalf of your company providing customers with what they need and then focusing on making the customer satisfied. Your negotiation skills will help you to identify prevalent issues and offer solutions to them while maintaining a positive relationship. Negotiation skill is a requisite skill on the job set especially if you work as a business relationship manager where you have to negotiate contracts with vendors.
- Build an easy Connection with People Especially Strangers
As a relationship manager managing relationships with others is highly paramount and this is done by speaking directly to individuals. You should be very confident when speaking to people and connect easily with strangers or be at the risk of losing such individuals to someone who can connect to them better. To feel very confident when talking to people; consider taking a course in public speaking with a practicing manager so that you can get direct feedback from someone with your company’s best interest in mind.
- Learn Customer Relationship Management Tools
There are varieties of tools that can help you understand a customer relationship role. It is very beneficial to work with CRM’s so that you can easily complete your work as a relationship manager. The benefits of CRM are that it keeps you organized, your communication abilities provide automation for some of your t, asks, and tasks you have built-in analytical data for reporting. When seeking a job as a relationship manager, the job recruiter may ask you about your experience with CRM and it is best to have something to say.
Where to Work as a Relationship Manager
A relationship manager can be employed by any company looking for a means to build a strong base of clients or customers. While some relationship managers may be able to find a position in many industries-including for instance, luxury retail. Below are placed relationship managers can work;
- Large Banks and Financial Institutions: a lot of banks need relationship managers as customer service or middlemen between the banks and customers. Relationship managers play a huge role in bringing customers to the banks and retaining them. Most bank customers may have complaints about the services the bank is offering; it is the sole responsibility of the relationship manager to resolve them.
- Recruitment Firms: a relationship manager can work in a recruitment firm. Recruitment firms need relationship managers to serve as a bridge between the agency and job applicants. Relationship managers have a way of connecting to people easily.
- Law firms: a relationship manager can work in a law firm as an intermediary between the firm and clients who come to book for a case. The relationship manager will help the firm to retain these clients.
- Retail Outlet: relationship managers can work for retail stores and perform the role of salesman and improve the sales of the store. They can also advise the store on how they can boost their sales and retain their customers. Retail outlets are in dire need of the service of a relationship manager because it builds the success of a business.
Relationship Manager Salary
- In Nigeria, the average salary of a relationship manager is NGN 230,000 per month in the city of Lagos. The average additional cash compensation for a Relationship-Manger in Lagos is NGN 280,000 in the range from NGN 5,270- NGN 1,920,000.
- In Australia, the average salary of a relationship manager is $105,000 per year and $53.85 per hour. Entry-level positions start at $89,925 per year while most experienced workers make up to $140,984 per year.
- The average salary for a relationship manager in the United States is $57,904 per year and $12,000 commission per year.