Inspired by this post, I’ve been thinking about the very best account handlers I’ve worked with. Or the best client services directors, client partners or whatever their agency calls them.
I’m thinking of the print expert who said yes because they knew exactly who to call to get a printers to open up over the weekend for a rush job. The insanely organised one that the client kept offering a job to. The specialist who kept an enormous number of high-stakes, big client plates spinning while working in their second language. The ray of sunshine who made everyone feel like the most important person in the room. And the shopper AD who knew more about retail than their retail clients.
They have all been blessed with the ability to Make Problems Go Away, whether that’s through finding a political, practical or creative solution. If I warn an account director of an impending problem, “don’t worry at all, I’ll sort it” is exactly what I want to hear.
The very best account directors also have a touch of Mary Poppins about them in their relationships with clients, whether that’s reframing problems as opportunities, delivering tough love wrapped in the sweet treat of an ego polish or really making clients feel like they’ve been heard and understood.
And, of course, the very best account directors work in partnership with their strategists, focusing on building on each other’s strengths as a team. The very worst ones, in my experience, regard strategists as a threat that may expose their own strategic shortcomings. Which is nuts, because not only do good account directors make their strategist’s lives easier, good strategists make their account directors look good.
But I’m starting to wonder if these paragons of client service are born, rather than made. The gap between account manager and account director continues to widen, with, in my experience, account managers increasingly consigned to junior duties, while clients want their ADs working on every project, however small. We learn by watching, but we also learn by doing and the only way to really become brilliant at managing big clients is to start off by leading small projects. And promoting someone into a role who isn’t ready, simply because their longevity calls for it, is a recipe for losing clients. Which would not be very supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
“We’re over budget, the ASA rang, the meeting’s now tomorrow and the copywriter’s off sick”
Ah, Radio Ray Mason, I remember you convincing that cruise client to *personalise* their loyal customer DM in about 2003. And the client then ringing up to tell us that one high spender had received their DM, jumped in their car, driven to head office and demanded a freshly printed brochure to get ahead of the crowd. Happy days.
From someone who was once dubbed “Makes-it-go-away Ray”, I thank you!