Partner: What is the cost of hiring?

What is a client partner?

A client partner (CP) acts as the strategic lead for managing and growing client accounts. They ensure client satisfaction, identify opportunities for upselling or cross-selling and connect customer goals with the company’s products or services. Client partners often act as trusted advisors, building long-term relationships that benefit the customer and the business.

Why hire a client partner?

Client partners handle essential relationship management duties, including account growth, client advocacy and strategic alignment. Hiring a CP is ideal if your company needs to deepen client trust, improve retention or unlock new revenue streams through existing accounts. Signs you may need a client partner might include declining customer renewals, missed upsell opportunities or overextended account managers struggling to balance delivery with growth.

Contributions of a great client partner:

• strong relationship building and trust development
• ability to spot and pursue growth opportunities
• alignment of client goals with business outcomes

Defining your hiring needs for a client partner

Start by assessing the size and scope of your client portfolio. Decide whether you need a full-time, part-time or contract CP and consider the appropriate seniority level (e.g. client partner, senior client partner or key account director). Compare adjacent roles, such as account manager or business development manager, to ensure your description matches your needs.

What are the types of client partners?

Client partners may specialize in various areas, depending on their industry focus, account size or business objectives.

Common types of client partners include:

• strategic client partner: works with enterprise-level accounts to build multi-year partnerships
• growth-focused client partner: concentrates on upselling, renewals and identifying new opportunities
• customer success partner: prioritizes retention, adoption and ongoing satisfaction
• industry-specialized client partner: brings domain expertise in areas like tech, healthcare or finance
• hybrid client partner: balances both account retention and expansion responsibilities

When writing your client partner job description, consider including some or all of the following keywords to improve the visibility of your job posting. These are the most popular search terms leading to clicks on client partner jobs, according to Indeed data:

• personal support worker
• safety
• psw
• human resources
• government
• health and safety
• long-term care
• occupational health safety
• support worker
• ncso

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Where to find client partners?

You can find client partners across Canada by targeting industries that value strategic account management, attending professional networking events and engaging with customer success communities.

To find the right client partner for your business, consider trying out a few different recruiting strategies:

• Industry conferences: Events like SaaS North, Canadian Marketing Association events or TechTO attract candidates with strong client relationship experience.
• Professional associations: Groups like the Canadian Professional Sales Association (CPSA) or Account Management Institute offer directories and training programs.
• University programs: Graduates in business, sales and communications from schools such as McGill, Western and UBC often pursue client-facing roles.
• Internal promotions: High-performing account managers, project managers or sales reps can be groomed for client partner roles.
• Adjacent industries: Candidates from consulting, customer success or business development often bring transferable relationship management skills.

Post your job online. Try posting your client partner job on Indeed to find and attract quality candidates.

Skills to look for in a client partner

A successful client partner candidate will typically have the following skills and competencies, which may be gained through a variety of experiences, training, or education:

• advanced relationship building and negotiation skills
• ability to identify growth opportunities and manage renewals
• experience in customer success, sales or account management
• strategic thinking aligned with business objectives
• ability to collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver value
• data-driven approach to measuring client health and account growth

Writing a client partner job description

Now that you know the key skills, salary expectations, popular search terms and hiring insights for a client partner, you’re ready to write a job description.

A client partner job description typically includes a compelling summary of the role, a detailed list of duties and responsibilities, and the required and preferred skills for the position. You may also want to include information about your company culture, benefits and perks to attract candidates to your open role.

Ready to get started? See our full guide for writing client partner job descriptions.

Interviewing client partner candidates

Strong candidates for client partner positions will be confident answering questions regarding:

• experience managing high-value client relationships
• ability to identify and pursue upsell or cross-sell opportunities
• conflict resolution and handling demanding clients
• aligning client needs with business outcomes
• strategies for retention and long-term growth

Need help coming up with interview questions? See our list of client partner interview questions for examples (with sample answers).