A Relationship Manager is entrusted with establishing and nurturing positive customer connections. They excel in communication and problem-solving, collaborating closely with sales and marketing teams to identify growth opportunities, resolve complaints, and enhance both profitability and customer satisfaction.
As a Relationship Manager, the primary role involves building and nurturing positive customer relationships. With excellent communication and problem-solving skills, they collaborate closely with sales and marketing teams to identify growth opportunities, address concerns, and ultimately boost both profitability and customer satisfaction.
Here, we will learn about the role of relationship manager, job description, important interview questions, qualifications required and salary for this job role.
What is the Role of a Relationship Manager?
As a Relationship Manager, the primary role involves building and nurturing positive customer relationships. With excellent communication and problem-solving skills, they collaborate closely with sales and marketing teams to identify growth opportunities, address concerns, and ultimately boost both profitability and customer satisfaction.  Â
The relationship manager maintains a link between clients, customers, and business partners to provide the best customer service experience and the best services and products. Relationship managers are responsible for adding more clients and helping to build stronger relationships with existing business firms.Â
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Is a Relationship Manager a Sales Job?
The Job role of a relationship manager is part of the sales job but not completely a sales oriented profile. The job role of a sales professional is to close deals and generate profit. A relationship manager is responsible for maintaining a long-term business relationship with the client and firms.Â
They look after client needs and ensure clients are satisfied with the services they get. They also resolve their issues and concerns properly. They act as a bridge between the client and the organization. Overall, the role of a relationship manager is to build and foster a strong connection within the organizations and take regular feedback through surveys and assessments. If any issue is found, they address it quickly.
Also read:Â Career Opportunities for Graduates in BFSI Sector: Prospects and Essential SkillsÂ
Relationship Manager Vs Sales ManagerÂ
Let us understand the major differences between a Relationship Manager and a sales manager from the table given below.
| Relationship Manager Roles | |
| Sales Manager | Relationship Manager |
| Leading and training a team of salesmen | Creating and maintaining relationships with customers |
| Assigning sales tasks | Providing satisfaction to clients |
| Setting sales quotas | Communicating with respective departments to mitigate customer issues |
| Building a sales plan | Additional tasks may include upselling or cross-selling activities. |
| Hiring and firing salesmen | May not be directly involved in hiring/firing |
| Planning and tracking sales goals. | Primary focus on relationship building rather than sales targets. |
Relationship Manager Roles and Responsibilities
Relationship managers have a lot of responsibilities in an organization. Let us know about some of the major responsibilities below.
1. Business Development
The relationship manager is responsible for identifying new opportunities for the growth of the business. They maintain strong relationships with existing clients, customers, and business firms. They can create and upscale different benefit opportunities for their existing clients.Â
2. Client Retention
They work on different improvement aspects to retain existing customers and business firms. They maintain good long-term relationships with the clients with the help of communication and regular support. They must know the needs and expectations of their clients and try to provide them with the best service, address their issues, and provide personalized solutions.
3. Smooth OnboardingÂ
The relationship manager is responsible for onboarding the new joiners smoothly. They are responsible for making them comfortable and guiding them throughout the complete process and tasks. They must introduce the newcomer to the company’s products and services. They must describe their daily tasks and responsibilities.
4. Communication and Problem Resolution
The relationship manager maintains effective communication with the clients and other business partners. They are a bridge between the client and the organization. They are responsible for communicating any important updates to the particular department of the organization. They also guide them through the new major changes, their scopes and their benefits.
They also help to resolve any conflicts or confusion arising within the company. They also provide personalized support, keeping in mind the interests of their clients and business partners. They also generate additional business opportunities with cross-selling and upselling.
5. Regular FeedbackÂ
They also conduct regular surveys and assessments of the quality of work and services being provided to the clients. They also gather regular feedback from the clients and address their issues effectively.Â
Also read:Â Is Banking A Good Career Options In 2024?
Relationship Manager Qualification and Skills
Candidates opting for relationship manager jobs must have the following qualifications.
- A bachelor’s degree in a related field from a recognized university.
- They must have a minimum of 5 years of experience in customer service.
- They must have excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Strong interpersonal skills and Customer service skills
- Can work in a team environment.
- Strong presentational and organizational skills
Relationship Manager Job Descriptions
Candidates applying for the job role of relationship manager will be responsible for maintaining a strong relationship with the customers or clients of the organization. They must have good communication skills and be able to communicate with our customers. Candidates as relationship managers must be able to address and solve customer issues and complaints at the earliest.
Relationship Manager Interview Questions
Let us look at some of the general interview questions for a relationship manager interview.
- Why are you interested in this company?
- Do you prefer to work on your own or in a team?
- What are your long-term career goals?
- What are a few of your hobbies?
- How would past colleagues or supervisors describe you?
- What initially attracted you to this field of work?
- Have you had experience managing a team?
- What would you do if a customer made an unreasonable request?
- How do you approach developing and maintaining strong relationships with clients?
- What experience do you have in managing client relationships and what strategies have you found to be most successful?
- Name three elements of good customer service.
- What are some critical challenges for customer-relationship managers?
- What are some challenges related to CRM system incorporation?
- Name some handy CRM tools’ features for managing customer emails.
- Explain what it means to empower your customers
- Have you ever gone out of your way to enhance the customer experience?
- How would you help us improve our conversion rates?
Relationship Manager Salary
A relationship manager is paid well, with an average salary of 5 to 6 lakhs per annum in India. However, the pay scale totally depends on the working culture, organisation, and skills of the candidates working as relationship managers. If relationship managers can contribute more to the growth of the company, then they will surely get appraisal bonuses from the company on the basis of their performance.
Also read:Â Best Certificate Courses in Banking 2024, Placement, and Fee
Relationship Manager Roles FAQs
Is a relationship manager a high-level post?
A relationship manager is a medium-level post within an organization responsible for looking after the customer's relationship and the company's profit (sales representative).
What is the job role of a Relationship manager?
The relationship manager is responsible for building a strong business relationship with their customer and building new relationships with the fresh joiners. They also need to communicate with the clients, ask for regular feedback and address their concerns.
What are the skills required to become a relationship manager?
In addition to banking domain knowledge, the skills required to become a relationship manager are communication skills, teamwork skills, interpersonal skills, management skills, organizational skills, etc. Candidates having these skills can apply for a job role of relationship manager.
