What does a relationship manager actually do?

With all the extremely dedicated, hardworking professionals that make up the bulk of the investment banking behemoth, there’s a need for a friendly face to build relationships with clients and be the middle man between business needs and individual needs. This is the job of the relationship manager! Three of the key components of their job are listed here.

Client Management

There’s a lot of networking involved, which is nice and you get to go to lots of nice dinners and exclusive events, but this isn’t all fun and games. In order to woo the clients and address the needs that they want delivered, you have to know the industry inside out, as well as being extremely personal and keep clients sweet. The amount of knowledge that you need to possess to be an investment banker is gigantic, because whatever the customer wants to discuss has to be discussed – you must be able to advise them on their investments, discuss the risks associated with the industry and to top all of this off, make it easy to understand to someone who may not have the knowledge of the industry.

Gaining Clients

One of the other huge responsibilities of a relationship manager is the acquisition of new clients. They’ll have to make presentations and deliver them to the prospective customer, convincing them why their particular bank is the right choice for an investment. On top of this, they’ll have to seek out potential customers who might have an interest in the investment world and then convince these people why the industry is worth becoming a part of. There’s an element of sales and an element of recruitment in here, meaning that your relationship manager has to be a jack-of-all-trades to say the least.

Customer Development

Clients will almost certainly be given a personal relationship manager to deal with their account, and their manager will be expected to sit down and give bespoke advice about any particular account. They are expected to build close relationships, which involves unsociable hours to maintain – especially because the relationship must be built around the client’s own schedule. Correspondence and quick responses to queries are paramount, and an ability to build a quick and strong rapport with a client is a skill all relationship managers must build.