What is the difference between Account Management and Key Account Management?

Key account management is like priority banking. IT requires relatively more experienced professionals, primarily because of the strategic importance of the account.

Not every company you are selling to is a Key Account for your business.

You need to be sure to see the difference between a real Key Account and Standard Account. A Key Account is represented by a person or a group of people to which your business has built more than standard business relationship based on the trust level between you and buyers.

Ideally the dynamic of the relationship has changed from that of vendor-buyer to much more of a partnership. You’re no longer selling to that buyer—you are that buyer’s partner in continuously helping their company succeed. One very key reason for doing so is that the better your buyer (and other contacts at the company) succeed, the more your product or service is going to succeed at that company.

Based on this relationship you can cluster your accounts by account types and account classification:

• Account Type – is a customer, be it a individual or company, that you are connected to e.g. new customer, existing customer, partner etc.
• Account Classification (0, A, B, C, D) – enables you to classify your accounts from 0 (you do not know this account at all) up to D (your Key Account)

It means that the most valued account in your system should be classified as “D” and recognized as “Partner”.

Key Account Management (KAM) defines the relationship between your business and customers you are selling to.

Accounting Management (Business) is the practical application of management techniques to control and report on the financial health of the organization. This involves the analysis, planning, implementation, and control of programs designed to provide financial data reporting for managerial decision making. This includes the maintenance of bank accounts, developing financial statements, cash flow and financial performance analysis

A key account management (KAM) defines full relationship between your business and the customers you are selling to. It describes the individual approach of sales people to their customers in order to create long everlasting business relationship , you can say that difference in applying

The basic purpose of an Account manager, let be a normal Account manager or a key account manager is to maintain the existing relationship between the company and it's client, so that the client continue using the company's business.  Yes, It is a dynamic profile...

And What makes a key account manager highlighted from a normal account manager is, A KAM will be handling the Key customers of the company, Say the referential clients, enterprise accounts, groups of clients like community's, clients who need 24x7 support etc.. who contribute towards the major growth of the company.

Thus a dedicated KAM is assigned here, he will be doing all the basic responsibilities of an account manager like Internal and external coordination, Kick off calls, customer service, handling escalation etc..

Apart from these a KAM should be more proactive and who thinks more than a short term sales/relationship, someone who can strategies plan for customers thereby improving the companies revenue, who can think outside the environment before any projects, who can maintain a healthy relationship to the customers..

KAM will be acting as the face of the company so he should analyse the customer's gaps and flows and suggest the company's product or service by identifying the decision maker or Influencer  which may result in getting a new sale or project to the company.