Why Aren’t Agency Account Managers More Proactive? An Honest Answer for Agency Leaders
Quick answer
Quick answer: A lack of proactivity in agency account managers is consistently ranked as the top unmet client expectation in client-agency research, but the cause is structural, not personal. Most account managers want to be proactive, and most agency leaders say they want it too. The problem is that three features of the typical agency model actively work against it: billable hour targets that make unscoped thinking invisible, a lack of account prioritisation that makes proactivity random, and no internal process to recognise or reward it when it happens. This post explains all three and what agency leaders can do about each one.
I went down a bit of a research rabbit hole when preparing for my recent AI for Account Managers webinar. One of the complaints I’ve heard from clients throughout my years of training is that account managers aren’t proactive or strategic enough. So I asked Perplexity to synthesise the findings of the ten most significant client-agency reports published in the last two years, to see whether it was still true.
It is. Still right at the top: “strategic challenge and proactivity.”
And yet it’s rarely the account manager’s fault. I want to be clear about that, because account managers reading this often carry a quiet guilt about it. The agency conditions around them make proactivity almost impossible to sustain.
What do clients mean when they ask for “proactivity”?
When clients say they want more proactivity from their agency account manager, they mean someone who can look at their business, their competitors, and their customers and say: “I’ve spotted something we should talk about.” Someone with a point of view. Someone who brings ideas before they’ve been asked for them.
Most agency owners I speak to want exactly the same thing. And so do most account managers. So it’s almost never a motivation problem.
Why don’t agency account managers behave more proactively?
In most agencies, the conditions train them not to.
Proactivity doesn’t get noticed much. No fuss, no celebration, rarely a “well done you.” But the consequences of not doing reactive work are immediate and visible:
A missed deadline gets attention
Scope creep invites a monthly bollocking
A late client response gets its own emergency meeting
An AM who never brings an unsolicited idea to a client meeting can go unnoticed for months, sometimes years. That is a powerful signal from the agency’s culture — whether it’s intended or not. It tells the account manager that delivery is what matters, that surprises are unwelcome, and that suggesting something new is a risk not worth taking.
Then we wonder why those damning report findings keep returning with “the agency is perceived as too transactional.”
What are the three agency conditions that squeeze out proactive behaviour?
1. Billable hours and utilisation targets
Proactivity starts before there’s a brief. It looks like reading about a client’s competitors, noticing a category trend, spotting a shift in customer behaviour, pulling together competitor campaign examples ahead of a QBR. Useful work. The kind of thinking that clients say they want.
But in most agencies, that time has no obvious home. It’s un-scoped, unpaid, and invisible on any timesheet. Because it goes unnoticed and unrecorded, it gets squeezed out in favour of work that counts.
2. No clear account prioritisation
If every client account is treated as equally important, account managers are left to guess where to focus any spare thinking time.
Should they spend it on the biggest client? The happiest one? The most difficult one who also happens to be the most profitable? The one with the most growth potential, who already takes up 40% of the agency’s total income? Without clear account prioritisation, proactivity becomes random — and account managers tend to default to the path of least resistance, spending discretionary time on the clients who are easiest and most pleasant to deal with. When everyone is busy, those random acts of proactivity are like Where’s Wally. Nearly impossible to spot, and easy to discount.
3. No process to make proactive behaviour visible or celebrated
This is the one I find most frustrating, because it’s the most fixable.
A regular internal client impact meeting — even once a month — could change things meaningfully. Pick a commercially significant account, bring the team together, and ask three questions:
What have we spotted in this client’s market recently?
What risk or opportunity should they know about?
What idea could we put in front of them before they ask for it?
Even running this quarterly starts to make proactivity a visible, team-level activity rather than a solo burden on the account manager. And when someone does bring a useful insight to a client - recognise it. Make it known internally. According to Relationship Audits, clients spend an average of just 7% of their working week engaging with all their suppliers combined. The moments when an AM shows up with something genuinely useful are the moments clients remember. Make sure the agency remembers them too.
Where does AI fit in?
AI lowers the barrier to getting started, which matters more than people realise.
It can scan competitor activity, summarise customer reviews, and help an account manager turn a rough instinct into a concrete discussion starter, a simple prototype (using no-code tools like Replit or Lovable), or an unexpected idea to table at the next QBR. The “I think there’s something here but I’m not sure how to frame it” feeling is often what stops an AM from acting on a good instinct. AI can help bridge that gap.
What it can’t do is replace judgement. It won’t know whether the timing is right, or read the client’s mood, or understand which idea is commercially relevant and which is just noise. That is still account management. It always will be.
Why perception matters as much as the work
Rory Sutherland talks about this well: clients can’t see how much an account manager cares about their business. They can only see the evidence of it.
A competitor example, shown unprompted during a QBR, is evidence. Something like: “Your competitor has just changed how they’re positioning this product. We think there’s something worth watching here, and this is what we’d suggest.” That signals attention. It signals commercial awareness. The AM doesn’t need to know every line of the client’s P&L to be useful — they need to show, consistently, that they are paying attention to the client’s world.
That’s what clients remember. And frankly, it’s often the difference between being seen as a project manager with the title of account manager and being treated as someone who is commercially relevant.
That difference is created, or blocked, by the agency around them. So if your account managers aren’t being proactive, look at what your agency rewards before you look at them.
Summary
Client-agency research consistently places “strategic challenge and proactivity” at the top of unmet client expectations, and it has been there for years. But the cause is structural. Billable hour models make unscoped proactive thinking invisible. A lack of account prioritisation makes it random. And without any internal process to recognise or celebrate it, reactive behaviour gets rewarded by default. Fixing this means changing the conditions, not the people. A monthly client impact meeting, clear account prioritisation, and visible recognition of proactive behaviour are practical starting points. AI tools can lower the barrier to acting on an instinct, but judgement and timing remain the account manager’s job. What your agency notices and rewards is the real answer to why proactivity isn’t happening.
FAQ
Why aren’t my agency account managers more proactive?
In most agencies, reactive behaviour is what gets noticed and rewarded. A missed deadline creates an emergency. A missing proactive idea goes unnoticed for months. Three structural conditions drive this: billable hour targets that make unscoped thinking invisible, no account prioritisation framework to guide where AMs should focus, and no internal process to recognise proactive behaviour when it happens.
Is it the account manager’s fault if they’re not being strategic enough?
Rarely. Most AMs want to be more proactive, and most agency leaders say they want it too. The issue is the environment. An AM working in an agency that rewards reactive delivery and ignores proactive initiative will behave reactively - not because they don’t care, but because that’s what the conditions reinforce.
How can an agency encourage more proactive account management?
Start with a monthly internal client impact meeting. Pick one commercially significant account, bring the team together, and ask what you’ve spotted in that client’s market, what risks or opportunities they should know about, and what idea you could take to them unprompted. Do it quarterly at a minimum. Recognise individuals who bring useful insights to clients. Make proactivity visible before you expect it to happen consistently.
Does account prioritisation affect how proactive AMs can be?
Significantly. Without a clear framework for which accounts warrant the most proactive attention, AMs default to either spreading effort too thinly or gravitating toward the easiest clients. A simple prioritisation matrix, weighted by revenue, growth potential, and strategic fit, gives AMs a defensible answer to “where should I spend my thinking time?”
How does AI help account managers be more proactive with clients?
AI tools can scan competitor activity, summarise customer reviews, and help an AM turn a rough thought into something presentable: a prototype, a trend summary, a discussion starter for a QBR. The value is in lowering the barrier from “I think there’s something here” to “here’s something concrete.” Tools like Replit, Lovable, and AI research assistants are practical starting points. They don’t replace the judgement call about whether an idea is the right one for the right client at the right moment.
What’s the difference between a proactive account manager and a reactive one?
A reactive account manager responds to briefs, manages delivery, and keeps clients updated on progress. A proactive account manager shows up to a QBR with a competitor example the client didn’t ask for, flags a market development before it becomes a problem, and treats knowing the client’s business as part of the job, not a bonus activity for quieter weeks.
I’m co-hosting the AM:PM event in Atlanta on 29-30 September with Brett Harned, and David C. Baker is our featured speaker. It’s a 1.5-day conference for agency owners, leaders, and anyone in account or project management covering account growth, delivery, and the operational reality of agency life right now. Early bird pricing runs through to 31 July. I’d love to see you there.
And if this topic struck a chord, what does your agency actually celebrate? That’s usually where the answer lives.
