# Key Roles of Relationship Managers: Types and Essential Skills

## What Is a Relationship Manager?

A relationship manager helps build and maintain strong connections between a company and its clients or business partners. The role requires good communication and analytical skills to understand client needs and market trends. In larger organizations, relationship managers often focus on either clients or business relationships. By knowing what clients want and staying on top of market changes, they help their company succeed. There’s a difference between managing client relationships, which focuses on individual or corporate clients, and managing business relationships, which focuses on partnerships and organizational growth.

### Key Takeaways

*   Relationship managers enhance business relationships with clients and partners to maximize value and maintain good reputations.  
    
*   These managers focus on communication, conflict management, and people skills, alongside technical industry knowledge.  
    
*   Relationship managers use data to analyze trends, solve problems, and refine company practices effectively.  
    
*   Small firms often require relationship managers to handle both client and business relationships, whereas larger firms specialize their roles.  
    
*   Two main types of relationship managers exist: client relationship managers and business relationship managers.

![Relationship Manager: Professionals tasked with improving a company's business relationships with partner firms and clients.](https://www.investopedia.com/thmb/-U8zKU-1hIBpr31TNFu5EjSth_s=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/relationship-manager.asp-final-5adec7c9a5884b2eac6b181a77769d9b.png)

*— Investopedia / Julie Bang*

## Key Responsibilities of Relationship Managers 

Good [relationship management](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/relationship-management.asp) is about communication, conflict management, and people skills as much as it is about the technical aspects of a particular business or industry. Professionals in this role may have a bachelor’s or [master’s degree in business](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mba.asp), but they also might have an undergraduate or postgraduate degree in [marketing](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/financialcareers/11/marketing-careers.asp) or [communications](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/professionals/050713/how-work-financial-communications.asp).

Strong communication and coordination skills are needed for facilitating better relationships with clients and other partners. It’s also common for relationship managers to work closely with customer-facing staff to help them better understand clients’ needs and motivate them to provide the highest service standards.

In addition to communication skills, relationship managers need strong analytical skills to develop a deep understanding of the products or services being sold, the markets in which they are being sold, and broader industry trends. The better they understand the technical aspects of the business, the better and more efficient they can be at communicating with clients or partners or helping staff meet the needs of clients or partners.

## Exploring Different Types of Relationship Managers 

In [smaller firms](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/smallfirmeffect.asp), relationship managers might handle both business and client relationships. In larger firms, they usually specialize in one area.

> **Important**
>
> A key role of relationship managers is to help businesses differentiate themselves from competitors.

### Client Relationship Managers

The goal of client relationship managers is to build a culture of relationships with clients based on trust and value and not only on price. This builds strong barriers to competition. Trustworthy businesses encourage client loyalty, even if competitors offer lower prices.

Client relationship managers work with senior executives, sales managers, technical managers, finance directors, and others who make or influence sales decisions. They also may work directly with clients to address problems or overcome other obstacles.

Client relationship managers also monitor industry trends in order to identify new sales opportunities and to brief the product development and sales teams to meet client needs. They use the data they collect to establish [revenue](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/revenue.asp) targets and identify the resources needed to meet them. Research also is important to analyze competitor trends and assess potential threats to the firm’s relationships with clients.

Another role for client relationship managers is to organize training, planned maintenance, and other services to help clients get better and more efficient use from products or services. They also might help set up online ordering and payment systems that simplify the commercial arrangements with clients.

### Business Relationship Managers

Business relationship managers oversee the internal communication of business units within a larger corporation or with suppliers and other outside entities. They oversee teams that monitor purchases, budgeting, and cost factors and provide valuable information across business units to use resources efficiently and execute company standards.

This job involves tracking data related to how the business interacts with service suppliers, raw material providers, and other partners. Business relationship managers look for trends, handle problems, and analyze communications, contracts, and negotiations. They use the information to refine company practices.

Helping firms to maintain positive reputations in their communities is another important role that business relationship managers play. Companies seen as positive community contributors attract more clients and partners. Thus, building relationships with local entities is as crucial as those with other business partners.

## What Goes into Good Relationship Management?

Good relationship management is about communication, conflict management, people skills, and the technical aspects of a particular business or industry.

## What Skills Do Relationship Managers Need?

Relationship managers need:

*   Analytical skills
*   Communication skills
*   Coordination skills

Relationship managers also need to work closely with customer-facing staff in order to help them better understand clients’ needs and motivate them to provide the highest service standards.

## What Are the Two Main Relationship Manager Types?

The two main types of relationship manager are:

*   Business relationship managers, who oversee the internal communication of business units within a larger corporation or with suppliers and other outside entities
*   Client relationship managers, who build a culture of relationships with clients based on trust and value and not only on price

  

## The Bottom Line

Relationship managers directly and indirectly help firms improve business relationships with clients and partners. Their role is generally divided into two fields: client relationship management and business relationship management. They use data to look for trends and problems and analyze communications, contracts, and negotiations, in order to refine company practices.  

> **Article Sources**
>
> 1.  Chron. “[The Role of a Client Manager](https://work.chron.com/role-client-manager-8141.html).”
>     
> 2.  Gov.UK, Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework. “[Business Relationship Manager](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/business-relationship-manager).”