Setup for Account Managers (Traditional)

Overview

Account Managers manage existing accounts for your team. They help to build a relationship, make sure renewals happen, and help to expand business within your current customer base.    

The day-to-day of an Account Manager in Spiro would usually alternate between the Companies and the Opportunities pages. Account Managers will track their current customers as Companies, updating key customer information and checking in at the right cadence. When an Account Manager is called upon to either renew a customer or expand the business, they will use Opportunities to track them. 

Spiro can work very well for Account Managers with a few very basic configuration changes. The primary things you will want to set up for your Account Managers are:

1. Make sure your team has the proper VoIP setup 
2. If the team is in the field at all, make sure that they download the Spiro mobile app from the app store
3. Email Templates for Account Managers
4. Add customer-specific tracking fields at the Company level 
5. Add an Opportunity Type to track Renewals/Up-sells 
6. Best utilizing the Assistant

Spiro VoIP Setup 

This is an easy one: your CSM will turn this on for you! If you haven't already discussed it, please let them know which area code each individual would like to use for Spiro VoIP. A few things to consider: 

• It's best practice to turn on call recording if your locale allows for it. This not only will allow you to review phone calls after the fact, but also will allow Spiro to transcribe the phone calls and make them easier to search. 
• Set up your voicemail for Spiro - please reach out to your CSM to learn how to do this. 
• Think of Spiro VoIP as a new office phone number, that can call your desktop via the web or your mobile app. 
• If you have poor wifi or cell service, the call quality may not be that great.  
• You can have Spiro VoIP forward a call to your mobile or direct line in case you miss the call for some reason 

Download Mobile App 

If your Account Managers spend any time in the field visiting prospects, it's important for them to have the mobile app downloaded. You can distribute the following: 

Apple: spiro.ai/iphone

Android: spiro.ai/android

Spiro does not support apps on Windows phones or Blackberrys. 

Account Management Email Templates

To learn how to create email templates specifically, please refer to this article.

Account Managers tend to have longer emails that are specific to a customer's situation, which can make it hard to totally make templates that cover every aspect of an email. However, the templates can provide a good basis for things that Account Managers are often doing, such as customer check-ins and renewal notices. A few examples scenarios where it could be good to have email templates: 

• Customer quarterly check-in with no recent activity  
• 60-day contract renewal
• Detailed meeting recap 

The specific content of the email should be based on your terminology and process. Having these all pre-written for the Account Manager will save them a lot of time and allow you to control the messaging as they reach out to customers.

When creating the template, make sure that you are sharing them specifically with your Account Manager.

Customize the Company Page

If we are tracking customers specifically in Spiro, it would help to have a special area for us to track customer information at the Company level. What would make this slicker is if this section only appeared when someone is actually a customer! To do this, first, we need to create a Company Status field. Navigate to Settings > Custom Fields/Entities and in the Custom Fields section, make sure Company is selected like in the screenshot below.

Create a field called "Type", and make it a single pick-list. The values should indicate the current relationship level your company has with other companies. In this example, we use Prospect, Customer, Partner, and Competitor. 

We will now go back to the Custom Entities section and create a new section entity called Customer Information. Make sure that it is related to the Company, It is displayed as "Section View" and that the "Display based on the rule" option is checked. Set it up so that the customer information section is only visible if the Type field is equal to "Customer" 

When you have this entity, there will be a few fields you may want to add to it: 

When your team updates a company record to indicate that a company is a Customer, the Customer Information section will dynamically appear. The reason that we have it only display if the type is equal to Customer is because the information we track is only relevant for actual customers - and this way it will not unnecessarily complicate the page for Prospects, Partners or Competitors. 

Track your Customers

We recommend that your Account Managers create a pre-saved filter on the Company page to track their customers. 

Track Renewal and Up-sells on the Opportunity 

For your new business team, Opportunities represent the potential customers that your team is trying to work with. For your Account Managers, Opportunities represent potential up-sell to existing customers or big contract renewals. The benefit of tracking these as opportunities is because as a manager you will be able to track whether they were won or lost, as well as use the expected close date to calculate some kind of up-sell or renewal forecast. To get this started, we will need to create an Opportunity Contract Type Custom field: 

It should be a single pick-list and have a way to distinguish between new business, up-sells, and renewals. If you've already read the Closer setup guide, this would be the same contract type field we created in that guide. Have your Account Managers create opportunities and make sure the opportunities they won have a "Type" value of either Up-sell or Renewal. 

Utilizing the Assistant 

Spiro's Assistant will help Account Managers manage their book of Up-sell and Renewal opportunities by reminding them to follow up with key customer contacts. To get a more detailed breakdown of how the Assistant works, please refer to the linked article.

A common use case for Account Managers is to also preschedule reminders for their top customers, to make sure that they check in once a month or once a quarter. These reminders can be scheduled via the contact page, and they will come into the Assistant automatically 

To understand more about how Spiro can be more proactive for your team, please refer to this article. 

The Overall Process

1. The account manager process starts when a Closer close wins a new business opportunity, thus adding a new customer to the list. 
2. A manager will log in, see a new customer, and typically assign the Company an Account Manager, as well as change the "Type" of the Company to reflect a customer status 
3. From this point on, it is the Account Managers responsibility to gather key customer information points and help guide the customer through their journey. 
4. For any relevant renewal or up-sell, the Account Manager would create an opportunity to manage.
5. For every opportunity created, Spiro's assistant will give closers proactive recommendations to make sure they are on top of their opportunities.