Long post ahead. tl;dr: First pure AM experience. I'm in doubt about either: - Not being a good fit for the job at all; - eBay not being a good place to work in right now/ not being the place for me. Long read now. To give a bit more context: - I have done classic sales for a fair bit. - I'm into account management now. I handle 50 seller accounts and a 40-call weekly quota to reach (main operational metrics). I was hired by eBay in earlier 2021. So far, despite learning everything or mostly everything about the product and growth tactics, and being well-liked by clients, I'm thinking about quitting or pursuing new opportunities elsewhere. The thing is, given that this is my first experience, I have no means of comparison at all -- and I would like to understand more about whether my first few months are representative of being an Account Manager in general (as in, will it always be like this, and for every company?). Let's go over what I love as an eBay employee, first: the culture, the people, the atmosphere. I have an amazing team and a big support network. As for what is not working out: 1. Within the Customer Experience Unit -- where AMs work -- there has long been no clearer division between business development and customer service. This is at least for my geography. In essence, Account Managers (also called Growth Advisors) needed to fight constant pushback and confusion from sellers that overreached for CS-related stuff. For instance, this happened constantly when doing the first welcoming calls. While I have been able to set expectations, Customer Service itself lacks consistency. Couple that with constant policy changes (e.g., our Verified Right Owner program; Managed Payments; now the EU new VAT law), you will always get a decent amount of stuff that flows upstream all the way to you. 2. The operational volume feels absurd to cover if you want to do a quality job; in a 40-hour week, not counting an average of 5-7 hours of meetings, you are supposed to do 40 calls -- while also analyzing the account metrics/ handling their queries/ investigating issues, etc. A call can easily take 20 to 40 mins while you deal with basic business development subjects. When you add email handling/ help requests/ emergencies, this forces you to do everything with little to no prep time, even if you prioritize your portfolio by 80-20 rules. For the most part, I'm being forced to do the analysis of the account as I make the call, which is all but ideal. 3. The operational metrics themselves seem nonsensical: 100% emphasis on calls and 0 on handling email queries, for instance, means your incentive is to phone clients non-stop; there's no incentive for bulk communications. E.g., instead of phoning each and every seller on a new promo, I can send a catchy bulk email, get sign-ups already, and cover follow-up questions in the call -- saving time, money, whatever. Except this won't fill my quota. I'm doing unpaid overtime 1 day out 3, just to try and solve issues before they pile up for the next day. 4. Constant bugs, technical shortages, policy changes that are not properly communicated; silos leading to constant back 'n forth -- and especially all four ingredients adding together to each other make swift action and escalations to other departments a nightmare. The irony: the pure business development part/ the cross- and up-selling is the easiest, and would be doable if not for the context surrounding it. Not only that: my accounts generally adore me and all voice-of-the-customer surveys are stellar; my team lead is very happy about me (despite not reaching the quota yet, and I'm honestly thinking if I ever will); my calls were recently used as example for other agents despite being a junior, etc. It seems like a mistake to drop out, and yet... I also have a few friends in similar roles working in Google, Facebook, etc. One guy in particular described Facebook (Dublin) as relatively relaxed place for Account Managers, in comparison. My friend is a guy fresh out of business school, pretty much like myself. He had mentioned I believe, a smaller quota of weekly calls, for instance... But I honestly don't know what to think. Again onto the initial question: maybe it's like this in every single big tech company *and* I'm just not cut for this line of work? Maybe it's a particularly complicated period for eBay? Maybe it's eBay in general (in which case, oh, boy)? I'd be really glad for someone to share their experiences in another, similarly-sized company. Thanks for bearing it through this rather long-winded (and likely groggy) post. #ebay #facebook #google #accountmanagement #burnout
If you’re interested in bd roles at Amazon, let me know! Your current role sounds more customer success/ tactical account management
Take it with a grain of salt, as I know nothing about AM, but ebay is pretty trash and I'd recommend taking other opportunities if present