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Sales & Retail vocabulary · Account Management

Key account

Meaning in sales & retail, with examples

/ˌkiː əˈkaʊnt/nounCommon term

In sales & retail, key account means: One of a company's most important customers, usually because of the size of its orders or its strategic value, which gets special attention and a dedicated manager.

In Turkish: kilit müşteri, anahtar müşteri, stratejik müşteri

How it is used

Used in FMCG, manufacturing and B2B services. Key account management (KAM) is the job of looking after these customers, done by a key account manager. Supermarket chains are typical key accounts for food producers.

Example sentences

  1. Our five key accounts bring in nearly half of our annual revenue.

  2. As a key account manager, she looks after the three biggest supermarket chains.

Common collocations

  • key account manager
  • key account management
  • manage a key account
  • key account plan
  • account managerA person responsible for looking after a group of existing customers, keeping them happy and finding chances to sell them more.
  • customer retentionA company's ability to keep its existing customers buying over time, instead of losing them to competitors.
  • renewalThe act of extending a contract or subscription for another period when the current one ends, or the new contract itself.
  • B2BBusiness-to-business: selling products or services to other companies rather than to individual consumers.

More terms: Account Management

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