Meet the team
Meet Sandor and Jon: the new faces looking after Kerfuffle suppliers
Two new Account Managers. Plenty of customer experience. And one shared goal: making sure suppliers get more from Kerfuffle than simply having a profile and hoping for the best.
A good Account Manager should know what you do, what you are trying to achieve and, crucially, notice when there is an opportunity you might be missing.
That is the thinking behind two of the newest additions to the Kerfuffle team, Sandor Keresztes and Jon Knight.
Both arrive with serious SaaS and customer success experience, but rather different personalities, approaches and, as it turns out, caffeine requirements!
Meet Sandor
Hands-on, analytical and very much in your corner
Sandor joins Kerfuffle after a decade working with SaaS businesses across sales, account management and customer success.
His description of the Account Manager role is refreshingly straightforward: “We are the chain that links our suppliers and clients to Kerfuffle.”
The job may involve plenty of different things, but for Sandor the end goal is simple: keep customers happy and make sure they are getting genuine value from being part of Kerfuffle.
Sandor on supplier relationships
“Time is precious for everyone. I want each interaction to mean something.”
Less account managing. More actually helping.
Sandor describes himself as hands-on, and that applies to the smaller things as much as the bigger campaign conversations.
He wants to review supplier profiles, posts and documentation, spot errors or missed opportunities, flag anything that could be improved and proactively help suppliers make a stronger impression.
And before talking about campaigns or targets, he wants to understand one thing first:
What makes this supplier different? What do they offer that somebody else does not? Once that is clear, the goals and Kerfuffle activity can follow.
His rule is to underpromise and overdeliver, rather than promise the earth at the beginning of a relationship and spend the rest of it trying to catch up.
The campaigns that excite him most are not simply the loudest ones either. He is interested in genuinely distinctive ideas, particularly products or services that solve a recognisable problem for agents.
And his favourite bit? Seeing that activity turn into a result and, in his words, “putting a smile on my supplier’s face.”
Sandor’s advice to suppliers
Do not be too shy.
Buyers research everything now. If there is not enough clear, useful information showing what you do and why somebody should choose you over another supplier, it becomes much harder to generate leads or stand out from the crowd.
Sandor: quick-fire
Coffee or tea? Tea. “I can’t really drink coffee. I have too much energy.”
Early bird or night owl? 100% early bird.
Calls or emails? Calls.
Outside work? Handiwork and gardening. He is currently laying basic wood flooring in his attic.
Unexpected fact? Tell Sandor he cannot do something and apparently that is all the motivation required. He took up guitar after 30, has started learning piano and once responded to being told he could not lose weight by doing exactly that.
Meet Jon
Customer success, momentum and making things stick
Jon also joins Kerfuffle as an Account Manager, bringing a broad customer success background covering portfolio management, operations, leadership, revenue, retention, expansion and building processes from scratch.
His role is about helping suppliers get more from Kerfuffle by looking at the signals behind the account, understanding what is being used, what is not and where there is room to move things forward.
Jon on customer success
“I enjoy staying close to my customers, building that foundation of trust and maintaining momentum.”
Trust first. Outcomes next.
For Jon, a strong supplier relationship is built around trust, guidance and outcomes. If that is working, renewals feel natural, opportunities to expand become clearer and Kerfuffle becomes something embedded in the supplier’s business rather than another subscription sitting on a spreadsheet.
When a supplier first joins, he wants to understand who they are, what they do, why they chose Kerfuffle and what they originally came to us to achieve.
From there, it is about matching what Kerfuffle can offer against those goals and helping the relationship get moving with as little friction as possible.
The account manager as chameleon
Jon describes good account management as having a bit of a “chameleon characteristic”.
The Account Manager may need to wear several hats behind the scenes, from spotting underused benefits and helping with adoption to understanding campaign performance and guiding the next move.
The customer should not have to worry about all of that complexity. What they should see is progress.
Purpose creates momentum. Momentum creates actions. Actions lead to outcomes. Jon’s advice is to start by making sure your profile is current, clear, easy to understand and genuinely stands out.
He also believes suppliers should pay close attention to their reviews, the clarity of their offering and whether their public profile really reflects what they do today.
His attraction to PropTech is similarly practical. The property sector moves quickly, agents face increasingly complicated technology and commercial decisions, and Jon likes the simple bit at the heart of it: connect the right person with the right tool, then scale what works.
Jon: quick-fire
Coffee or tea? 100% coffee.
Early bird or night owl? Both.
Calls or emails? Both. If one does not get the job done, the other should.
Outside work? Cooking. For Jon it is therapy, as well as something he takes suspiciously seriously when family and friends come round.
Unexpected fact? Jon is an accent chameleon. California, Texas, New York, New Jersey, British, Brummie, French, Romanian and Spanish can apparently all make an appearance. He can also rotate his index fingers in opposite directions simultaneously, a talent of absolutely no commercial value whatsoever.
What this means for suppliers
More eyes on the opportunities. More help turning them into something useful.
Sandor and Jon have different backgrounds and different styles, but there is a pretty clear overlap in how they see the job.
Know the supplier properly. Understand the goal. Be proactive. Spot what is not being used. Say something when something could be better. And make every conversation worth the supplier’s time.
That is exactly what we want Kerfuffle account management to look like.
Already a Kerfuffle supplier?
Give them something to get their teeth into.
New campaign, product launch, offer, case study or simply the feeling you could be getting more from your membership? Talk to your Kerfuffle Account Manager. That is what they are here for.
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