National account representatives act in a supporting role to a company's more-senior national account managers or other sales executives. Savvy salespeople of a business' products or services, national account representatives work to establish new clients while maintaining profitable contracts with existing nationwide accounts.
The job of a national account representative is generally focused on customer satisfaction and increased sales. They work with assigned clients on a daily basis, facilitating information requests, coordinating orders, and reviewing and remedying customer complaints. In general, they manage client relationships.
National account representatives might also strategize with account managers to expand their company's market, contacting and scheduling sales meetings with prospective clients. This can involve actively searching for new opportunities or instructing sales teams in cold-calling operations.
Strong sales tactics are essential for this position, so a national account representative needs strong communication, presentation, organizational, and interpersonal skills. A four-year business degree is usually required for this role-and though some companies will hire at an entry-level position-prior experience in a field sales environment is preferred.
A career as a national account representative offers many opportunities for advancement and an average salary of $17 per hour. As your experience grows, you might expect to earn up to $62,000 per year.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a national account representative. For example, did you know that they make an average of $24.58 an hour? That's $51,125 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 2% and produce 35,400 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many national account representatives have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed customer-service skills, interpersonal skills and physical stamina.
If you're interested in becoming a national account representative, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 72.0% of national account representatives have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 6.9% of national account representatives have master's degrees. Even though most national account representatives have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a national account representative. When we researched the most common majors for a national account representative, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on national account representative resumes include master's degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a national account representative. In fact, many national account representative jobs require experience in a role such as sales representative. Meanwhile, many national account representatives also have previous career experience in roles such as customer service representative or account executive.