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Key account manager skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025

5 min read

Quoted experts

Jonathan Byers,

James Wilkerson Ph.D.

Below we've compiled a list of the most critical key account manager skills. We ranked the top skills for key account managers based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 10.2% of key account manager resumes contained account management as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a key account manager needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 key account manager skills for your resume and career

1. Account Management

The process of strengthening the relationship between a company and client is called account management. Effective account management has two key objectives, one is to retain loyal customers and the second one is to help the company grow by creating connections with new customers.

Here's how key account managers use account management:

Core Strengths Customer Service/Satisfaction Account Management Communications Sales/Advertising Problem-Solving Client Relations
Focused support via pricing management, productivity improvements and process sharing for select large regional, national and global account management.

2. Customer Service

Customer service is the process of offering assistance to all the current and potential customers -- answering questions, fixing problems, and providing excellent service. The main goal of customer service is to build a strong relationship with the customers so that they keep coming back for more business.

Here's how key account managers use customer service:

Manage Customer Service/Technical Support department to provide timely and excellent service and support to client base for financial and clinical software.
Collaborated with selling operations teams to proactively communicate ad activity and provide flexible, solution oriented customer service when issues arose.

3. Patients

Here's how key account managers use patients:

Prepare and coordinate meetings for conventions and medic groups based on specific parameters and specifications for diabetic patients.
Conducted health camps for patients on spreading awareness related to osteoporosis

4. CRM

CRM stands for Customer relationship management and it is a complete process through which a business or organization monitors and administers its interactions with the customers. A process in which large amounts of data are collected through marketing via a company's website, polls, surveys, and other social media applications. The basic goal of CRM is to target the right audience for their product, and then fulfill their needs, to increase the sales and revenue of the company.

Here's how key account managers use crm:

Managed company CRM implementation leading to increased sales profitability and customer satisfaction.
Monitored sales reports and planned daily sales activities around goals, objectives & shortcomings for assigned distributor using CRM.

5. Customer Relationships

Customer relationships are the interactions and efforts made by a company to improve its customer service. Customer relationships cover not just all of the essential roles performed by customer support, but also the initiatives made before and after the interaction with a customer.

Here's how key account managers use customer relationships:

Excelled at identifying and capturing new market opportunities, restructuring sales territories, improving retail programs, building customer relationships.
Visited customer facilities to provide sales support and product assistance, and to develop intimate customer relationships.

6. Excellent Interpersonal

Here's how key account managers use excellent interpersonal:

Team Player, with excellent interpersonal communication skills.

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7. KAM

Here's how key account managers use kam:

Selected to assist training of corporate based interns out of 100 Key Account Managers (KAM).
Produced the largest sales volume increase by KAM with 20% sales above LY.

8. Customer Satisfaction

Here's how key account managers use customer satisfaction:

Managed customers' portfolios, with responsibility for client acquisition, advertising campaign management, customer satisfaction, and client retention.
Identified inadequacies in repair and customer interaction processes and developed corrective action plans to improve customer satisfaction and repair turnaround time.

9. Business Development

Business development is the ideas or initiatives that work to make business work better. Selling, advertising, product development, supply chain management, and vendor management are only a few of the divisions involved with it. There is still a lot of networking, negotiating, forming alliances, and trying to save money. The goals set for business development guide and coordinate with all of these various operations and sectors.

Here's how key account managers use business development:

Managed business development and market initiatives, advancing product sales within the distributor network with in Northern California and Nevada.
Serve as focal point for all product/process/quality/business development activities within a business segment plus securing customer contracts.

10. Work Ethic

Here's how key account managers use work ethic:

Possess a strong work ethic and organizational and time management skills.
Embodied Bank of America core values and serve as a role model to peers regarding attitude and work ethic.

11. Project Management

Here's how key account managers use project management:

Developed and implemented highly effective project management tools for the consumer marketing team.
Account implementation and project management, meeting customer specific goals.

12. Distributors

A distributor is a supplier who provides stores with goods to sell. This maintains the separation between wholesalers and manufacturers, which is required in some state markets like alcoholic beverages. Distributors are responsible for quickly and safely delivering products to wherever the product is sold in addition to offering special deals for larger packages of product and even introducing a manufacturing company to more wholesalers.

Here's how key account managers use distributors:

Developed distributors within Regional responsibility.
Developed annual business plans; identified and appointed new distributors as needed; interacted with executive level negotiations and developed contracts.

13. Sales Territory

Here's how key account managers use sales territory:

Interfaced with marketing department to create specialized marketing promotions within specific areas of the sales territory.
Developed, negotiated, executed and managed promotional calendars and trade funding for sales territory.

14. Strong Analytical

Here's how key account managers use strong analytical:

Developed strong analytical skills of B2B market trends and positioning of B2B industrial products.
Developed strong analytical skills of B2B market trend

15. Sales Growth

Here's how key account managers use sales growth:

Initiated in-depth marketing audits and pricing/cost benefit analyses to gain incremental sales and customer support resulting in achievement of depletion/sales growth.
Succeeded in consistently delivering budgeted sales growth and margin targets despite challenging global economic conditions.

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What skills help Key Account Managers find jobs?

Tell us what job you are looking for, we’ll show you what skills employers want.

What skills stand out on key account manager resumes?

Jonathan Byers

Assistant Director, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

- Professional skills related to career development competencies such as strong oral & written communication, teamwork & collaboration, leadership, problem-solving ability & creativity, and professional integrity, but we recommend that applicants do not just list these skills. They should provide evidence of how they have used them in their work experience, volunteer experience, academic experience, etc.
-The ability to use technology effectively to solve problems or improve collaboration; this could relate to social media management, computer hardware or software skills, proficiency with general programs like Microsoft Office Suite (also being able to demonstrate the use of these skills in various experiences).
-With diversity, equity, and inclusion becoming more important in 2020, the ability to appreciate different points of view, accept and appreciate different cultural backgrounds & types of identities, and increased awareness of one's own cultural biases and assumptions can also be important to market on a resume.

What soft skills should all key account managers possess?

James Wilkerson Ph.D.

Business Program Coordinator, Project and Supply Chain Management Program Coordinator, The Pennsylvania State University

Verbal skills (both speaking and writing), negotiation skills, unfailing honesty, ability to empathize with clients' wants, and teamwork skills suitable for working collaboratively with sales and operations staff.

What hard/technical skills are most important for key account managers?

James Wilkerson Ph.D.

Business Program Coordinator, Project and Supply Chain Management Program Coordinator, The Pennsylvania State University

Spreadsheet (Excel) skills (including graph production from data), basic statistical knowledge, and online information search skills.

What key account manager skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?

Kaustav Misra Ph.D.

Associate Dean, Central Connecticut State University

This pandemic taught us many things and one important thing that we have an efficiency gap.

The way of doing business will be much more technology orientated. Hence graduates should be ready to unskill and upskill their credentials. This time it is necessary to forget the old way of doing business and learn new skills to get a job or stay in a current job. Soft skills have become much more important than before, but a different soft skill set would be essential to interact with future market participants. Thus, a gap year should be utilized to unskill-upskill and enhance relevant credentials by getting into short-long term programs, training, and workshops would be highly recommended.

What type of skills will young key account managers need?

Michael Mikitka

Executive Vice President, MHI – Material Handling Industry

Courses and internships are essential. While the required depth of knowledge may vary from one position to another, employers are generally looking for candidates with strong "people-related" skills, those who are willing to continue to learn, and those with the ability to be flexible and adapt.

By "people-related" skills, I mean the abilities associated with effective communication (listen and express ideas and direction) and the skills related to working independently and a team.

As for the interest to continually learn... from a technology, data, and equipment perspective, today's supply chain looks very different than it did 10-years ago. The willingness and ability to continually learn are essential for anyone in a leadership role.

As for flexibility and adapting...supply chain/logistics is as much about responding to disruption and demand as it is planning for it. There is a predictable demand (i.e., seasonal...everyone knows when back-to-school shopping begins). Then there is the unpredictable demand (i.e., power-outages, wildfires, pandemic) that impact market and the ability to operate. Candidates that express flexibility and problem-solving skills will be much sought-after.

What technical skills for a key account manager stand out to employers?

Todd Lee Goen

Instructor & Internship Director, Christopher Newport University

Technical skills are often industry and/or position specific. Applicants should highlight any technical skills related to the position advertisement and those that add value to the position/organization. Most importantly, requirements for technical skills change with time and technological advances. This means employers value workers capable of adapting to change and continually improving and acquiring new technical skills. Thus, it's usually more important to demonstrate you are capable of learning and developing technical skills than it is to have a specific skill set upon hire (although this is not true for some positions/industries).
That said, technical skills related to online presentations, virtual meetings, virtual networking, remote working and the like are hot commodities right now. While most organizations were in the process of adopting many of these technologies and ways of doing business pre-pandemic, the pandemic accelerated the process. Organizations are making it work, but they often don't know best practices or the most efficient means of working in the largely virtual, pandemic environment. Post-pandemic, many of the remote/virtual changes the pandemic brought will stay in some form. Technical skills that support this type of workplace will make applicants stand out to many employers because they need/want to do virtual/remote business better.

Do you want to know more?

List of key account manager skills to add to your resume

The most important skills for a key account manager resume and required skills for a key account manager to have include:

Account Management
Customer Service
Patients
CRM
Customer Relationships
Excellent Interpersonal
KAM
Customer Satisfaction
Business Development
Work Ethic
Project Management
Distributors
Sales Territory
Strong Analytical
Sales Growth

Product Development
Business Reviews
Sales Strategies
Develop Strong Relationships
Trade Shows
Wine
Business Relationships
Sales Targets
Product Knowledge
Revenue Growth
Customer Accounts
Sales Objectives
Market Trends
Market Research
OEM

National Accounts
Sales Plan
Product Line
POS
Indirect Sales
ROI
R
Sales Presentations
Client Relationships
Sales Volume
Promotional Programs
Brand Marketing
Develop Forecasts
Sales Revenue
IRI

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Updated January 8, 2025

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