AI for Account Managers: Feeling Empowered vs. Fearing Replacement
Client service is both art and science, built on relationships and results. As someone who is driven to find sustainable solutions for clients and is consistently thinking in roadmaps, I believe this at my core. The sometimes volatile interplay of relationship and results is why Account Managers should use AI to supplement their skill set to help retain and grow client engagement.
Current State of AI in Account Management
Most Account Managers at marketing agencies have tested AI use in CRM or Project Management platform. They are using an AI notetaker and have dabbled in automating replicable tasks for planning meetings, competitive research, and reviewing meeting notes. And many are beginning to rely on AI agents or AI- powered analytics for reporting revenue, lead generation, and account health monitoring.
These all cover the results portion of the client retention equation. What about the relationship?
Depending on the client engagement, AI can and should be used to enhance how an Account Manager is building a relationship. Let’s take a step back and talk about the function of an Account Manager.
Account Manager Role & Attributes
The “art” portion of an Account Manager’s role exists in how they communicate and connect with their client contacts. They know how to engage with the client contact, what questions to ask, and what details are worth sharing. The most successful account managers I’ve worked with are:
Excellent Listeners
Authentic, Proactive Communicators
Adaptable Partners
Bridge Builders
Resilient Advocates
These attributes are what make them a trusted advisor to their clients. They earn the trust by listening, adapting, gaining understanding and then delivering on the results that matter or recommending a relevant pivot.
The account managers and strategists who break this trust are those who:
Talk solely about their service or marketing channel
Report only on the metrics without sharing the “why” associated with a trend
Explain away negative results
Don’t work from a roadmap
Only reactively communicate with the client
The reasons for these trust-damaging behaviors in Account Managers could be driven by overwhelm, lack of maturity, fear of failure, or that they’re not meant for a client service role (more on all of this in a future post).
Utilizing communication remainders and editing, at a minimum, can help both the trust-building and trust-damaging Account Manager behaviors.
Scaling Trust Building Behaviors with Account Managers
For Account Managers who are already confident in their role as a trusted advisor, letting go of some replicable tasks and building AI agents will help them increase their capacity and efficiency. Some examples include:
Automating meeting agenda creation
Analyzing reports and developing summaries that can be reviewed and shared with clients
Scheduling meetings and follow-up communication
Mitigating Trust Breaking Behaviors with Account Managers
When Account Managers are struggling to keep clients engaged, there is either misalignment in the results or the relationship with the client. While employing AI to directly “fix the relationship” isn’t the best near-term approach, the Account Manager should be coached to use either in-platform or standalone AI solutions to bolster their work. Here are a few ideas:
Use a reporting agent and ask questions about trends in the data
Schedule reminders to proactively share reports and industry insights
As an editor, learning from email threads and call transcripts, to help you adapt your communication style to what the client needs to hear (i.e. high-level summaries, positive tone, less jargon, brand-specific language)
Share the client’s primary and secondary goals, services, and pain points to help with roadmap ideation
The practice of delegating tasks and employing the help of AI can help Account Managers increase their self-awareness, identify their strengths, and improve their overall collaboration with clients and internal teams.
AI Agents as Account Managers
As a former Account Manager, Director of Client Services, and Agency VP, I can’t believe I’m even writing this…. Yes, an AI agent could replace an Account Manager role when the tasks are replicable, the relationship touch points are few and far between, the goals are clear, and there is a human reviewing the engagement points. An AI agent could be a helpful solution when the following are true:
You have a large client portfolio requiring performance reporting on a scheduled cadence (daily, weekly, monthly)
The questions you receive are primarily about performance metrics tracked in a connected platform.
Communication can be templated as part of an in-platform workflow.
Client’s expectations of back and forth communication are low and the escalation paths are clear within your team.
Client meeting cadence is set to monthly or quarterly.
The benefits for the Director of Account Manager or Account Manager overseeing the portfolio is that they can scale a formula they know works well for that type of client contact. Yet, even these large portfolios of client contacts require human oversight. AI can make mistakes, client expectations can change, and you might need to help decipher where new input is needed or client feedback should be addressed and incorporated.
The Irreplaceable Human Element in Client Service
All of the successful Account Manager attributes above are founded in Emotional Intelligence and a curiosity for working in collaboration with other people. These Account Managers not only have years of experience, they have an awareness of other’s needs and, in some cases, years of context about a client contact and nuanced information about their company.
These are the folks you want managing your high-touch, complex roadmaps and client relationships. They care about the details in the relationship and the results.
These are the elements of client relationship I have yet to see successfully managed by an AI agent:
Communication about complex roadmaps: An agent can help build the roadmap, yet the complex prioritization conversation and negotiations about scope are best led by humans.
Strategic brainstorming: An agent can help with relevant ideation only if it has access to prior roadmaps and reports, it may have difficulty recommending idea you haven’t already shared with the client. It’s brainstorming is only as good as the resources you input.
Navigating feedback and conflict: Client conversations and course correcting with the team demand empathy, active listening, and understanding of tone, cultural context and brand-specific language.
Implementing Smart Delegation - A Hybrid Approach
Most Account Managers would love to have extra time in their schedule to plan ahead and focus on strategy with their clients. Use of an AI agents and in-platform automations can take many of the monotonous responsibilities off of their plates. Yet, it’s important to remember that delegation is a skill and the comfort-level with delegation will be unique to each account manager.
Leadership coaching and expectations about on the importance of delegation, clarification on what tasks should be delegated, and incentives for following through on delegating replicable tasks can help account managers feel ownership and confidence in handing off responsibilities.
I thought of the phrase “Smart Delegation” while doing some research for this post and came across Kate Christie’s SMART Delegation framework (Select, Motivate, Activity, Result, Timeframe). I was pleasantly surprised to read more and recognize how well this framework holds up when setting account managers up for delegating tasks to AI as well. (Stay tuned for more on applying this framework with your team!)
When account managers are confident in the value they provide to their clients and internal team, understand the expectations for LLM delegation and the agents they can test, and have a consistent feedback mechanism with leadership, they are more likely to be proactive in their used of AI.
Hybrid Models for Customer Engagement and Retention
As LLMs and AI agents become an critical part of how we get work done, the human connections we make on a call or in person feel even more special. Delegation with AI can help account managers deliver on the results a client expects and have more time and energy for strengthening relationships. This is why creating and refining hybrid model for account management teams can have a significant impact on employee retention and client satisfaction.
An effective delegation model must start with clear leadership objectives for results and relationships, consistent communication and documentation, and incentives for the team.
This will help the account managers feel motivated to test, learn and provide feedback aligned with the business goals and customer engagement goals.
An Account Management Team Hybrid Example
An example of a hybrid model shared during a team meeting, could include:
Objectives:
Reduce Account Manager time spent on manual work (meeting notes, building agendas, analyzing reports, drafting detailed emails) by 10% this month
Reduce internal meetings by 50% by the end of this year
Learn what tools enhance and detract from our daily work to set goals for next year
Improve our gross profit percentage above 30% for bonus potential for our team
Tools We’ll be Using:
These are the initial expectations for how we’ll be delegating some manual tasks.
Full delegation:
ClickUp Agents for task and roadmap updates
Fathom AI Notetaker for meeting recordings, notes, and action item summaries
Partial delegation:
ChatGPT Custom GPTs for Competitive Research, Report Analysis, and Ideation
SEMRush report summaries for you to tailor to your client
Any other ideas you have?
How We’ll Measure Progress:
Time Tracked by Client
Time Tracked by Team
Monthly Team Survey
Quarterly Client Survey
Why We’re Doing This:
We want to free up more of your time for relationship building, marketing strategy and proactive planning (i.e. the things you like doing!)
We can serve clients more effectively if we’re utilizing LLMs to help us capture notes and reduce replicable tasks
We want to grow our team and company in a sustainable way. Utilizing LLMs effectively now and in the future will help us understand the type of talent we need to retain clients and scale responsibly.
How We’ll Check In:
1:1 Meetings: I’ll ask you to prepare updates about how you’re feeling about your client relationships, workload and delegation to LLMs and agents. I’ll also listen to what’s working, what’s not working, and opportunities for improvement. We’ll prioritize next steps and work on solutions together.
Weekly Team Meetings: We’ll share trends, questions, and concerns in our use of LLMs, Custom GPTs, and agents across the team. We’ll also dedicate at least 1 meeting each month to training.
Company All Hands: We’ll celebrate wins with clients, highlight new tools, and recognize team members who are learning and implementing new AI approaches into their work.
It’s essential that Account Managers know they are still valued for their relationship-building expertise and how that helps retain and grow customer engagement. That affirmation of their talent can help them recognize why then need to delegate the manual or copy/paste replicable work. They might even contribute more ideas to build on the hybrid model you’ve developed!
Next Steps
Client and customer service will continue to evolve, as we’ve seen from chatbots to agentic AI. As a leader, it’s your job to set clear objectives for your teams, recognize and evaluate their talent that makes them uniquely equipped for the job, and identify the risks and opportunities to customer engagement that affect revenue.
If your Account Managers have been resistant to using LLMs, custom GPTs, or in-platform agents, you should reflect on why they might be responding that way.
Are there clear objectives and incentives for the team?
Are there regular touch points (1:1 or as a team) for you to understand what’s working and what’s not working?
Is more training, communication or collaboration needed?
Are there other self-preservation tendencies in play for certain team members?
If your Account Managers are eager to use new technologies and delegate. That’s great! How are you keeping them motivated, measuring the impact of their work and any changes in their client relationships?
Are you documenting what approaches are working?
How are you capturing client feedback?
Are you celebrating wins and lessons learned 1:1, in team meetings, and company wide?
Are you seeing a change in profitability and efficiency?
Are you inviting input on how to update processes and research new tools?
In the long term, your team will thank you for clarifying your expectations, recognizing their creativity and relationship-building expertise, and encouraging them to use LLMs and AI agents effectively. The way you approach AI use and delegation with your team will determine whether they will feel empowered and motivated to test new approaches or fearful and resistant to your management. If you strike the right balance, they might even come up with new ideas for you!
If you’re feeling stuck with empowering your team, evaluating client feedback about AI, and building a sustainable path forward, I can help!