Jon,

Your question is not an easy one to answer. I have accounts where there are multiple AMs (ie. global telecommunications company). I also have AMs
that handle multiple small accounts.

Our strategy is mostly based on the size of the account, but also takes into account the potential future revenue. We often assign a dedicated AM
to a strategic pursuit in anticipation that the dedication of the resource will be justified over time.

The main goals of our AMs are client satisfaction and expansion.

I’m not sure I answered your question, but our AM model is quite fluid.

Best regards,

Joe G.

It would also depend on if you are looking to make it into a revenue generating program or not. If so, just figure out the margin you
are looking for and your loaded cost per AM. From there you can determine the number of accounts needed. We run anywhere from
dedicated, 1 to 3, or 1 to 5 depending on size of account.

Jeff M.

For a broad product suite and where retention and satisfaction are key metrics, then, assuming you are running a recurring revenue business, revenue retention is key. Therefore, there is no pressure on net new sales for these accounts.

Given that, you could realistically service 20 customers per AM for smaller sized accounts (and you get to define small) assuming you have about 500 smaller sized accounts. This is because you will need to provide very good service for retention and that means at least 2 touch points from the AM to each account of meaningful time of 4 hours each.

For larger customers, meaning more complex environments where they do buy multiple products from you and hence greater touchpoints within the customer, you would end up with about 6-10 accounts per AM.

As you can see, the real answer is ‘it depends’ and it depends really upon:
1. How large a customer base you have
2. How you segment them (revenue............etc)
3. How you cover them today (some with 1:1 or 1: very small number coverage; some with 1: many coverage; some with telecoverage etc)
4. The industry you service
Finally, I would argue that you might consider them to be Relationship Manager’s rather than Account Manager - - most AM’s want a book of business they can grow and not a book that they can retain. Thus, their incentives would be very different....

Jon,

I have just gone through that in setting up an Acct Mgmt program.  Is this a new program for you or an existing function in your organization?

I have had ratios of 1 - 1, 1 - 3, and 1-5 based on the level of support required and the size of the customer.  In my current situation, it is 1 - 1 or 1 - 12.  Items that drive this is 1) Revenue under mgmt, or 2) potential upsell at the customer site.  What you also have to look at is what you are expecting each of the AM’s to accomplish and what tasks they are to perform.  Also how indepth are they to be with your software, how much time do they spend with the customer addressing software questions

So as you can see there is no simple answer.  There are many variables.

I wouldn’t mind speaking with you further on this subject.  Drop me a note at and we could set up time to speak.

Mark

I’m interested in hearing what you determine. I work with a SaaS portfolio project management solution and we have approximately 1
account manager for 10-20 accounts. Some of our account managers have lower ratios which we tend to link the ratio most directly with
revenue.

DR

The other big difference is probably whether you are a mature business vs. young organization and whether you are a pure consulting organization or captive within another business.

In our case (new and captive), sales is focused on hunting new business;licenses and services are mostly perceived by the sales force as an enabler for future license sales down the road. And since we need to do lots of hunting to get the revenue growth targets, account mgmt is territory driven.

Chris P.

This is an existing group within our organization today, I’m just doing some re-evaluation.  We actually have two groups 1) client base sales (focus on product and some service revenue from the base 2) Account management.  Whose focus is on customer sat, retention, referencability and making sure our customers take advantage of all the value our solution provides (that may come with some service revenue, but not always).
The AMs are not the software experts, rather more the relationship managers, so they don’t spend a lot of time addressing software questions.  They’re more of a quarterback and customer advocate, so the ratios that have been discussed are lower than what we would probably do since they’re not in the software detail level.

Jon H.