Serve More, Sell Less. It Works!

During this current economic crisis I have seen many articles emphasizing the need for increased sales and marketing efforts and virtually none on improved client service and strategies to differentiate accounting firms from their competition. While extraordinary client service is not a substitute for marketing or making sound and persuasive presentations to current and prospective clients, it is a mindset that gets everyone in the firm thinking about how they can better serve and cross serve their clients. Serving clients in a selfless, trusted advisor manner always focused on each client’s value proposition. A rare and valuable commodity in these hectic times as it requires time and intentional action on everyone’s part at a time when there are so many people competing for our time. A client centered service strategy in your firm will not cost any money yet will differentiate your firm and blow away your competition. If you want to have meaningful value added conversations with your clients you must first have a high level of trust in your relationship.

Trust in professional relationships is built through participatory positive experiences that benefit both parties so it is very important that your client interactions be as positive as possible and focused on solutions that create value for the client. If the majority of your conversations with your clients are about the late delivery of your products and services and misunderstandings about fees it makes it difficult for the clients to trust that you can provide truly exceptional service and value to them. Accountants must get past these most basic administrative matters to move into the trusted space of their clients. Failure to do so may result in the client thinking that you are trying to “sell” them when you offer them additional services. Many opportunities will be created with your clients when you are able put these routine matters to rest and then focus intently on their specific needs and wants.

Here are a few places to start:

1. Most accountants’ idea of client service is to react when the client calls. Unfortunately this strategy fails when too many client requests are made at the same time and their ability to react quickly and meet the client’s expectations is limited as everyone in the firm is busy. Of course the clients really don’t care that you are busy as they just want their needs satisfied. The first step to extraordinary client service is to manage client expectations by scheduling their work and then delivering on time. A very simple concept, however, it is difficult to implement due to the many matters that compete for your time and attention. This is without a doubt the #1 challenge facing accounting firms today and one that must be overcome if a winning client service strategy is to be successfully implemented. Sit down with your staff and discuss how everyone can make this happen. Successful implementation will take innovation as well as some restructuring of your processes.

2. Place yourself in situations where you can have meaningful conversations with your clients. One study at UCLA found that communication is 55% body language, 38% intonation and volume and only 7% the spoken words. You cannot communicate effectively and you risk losing 93% of your nonverbal communication effectiveness if you do not meet with your clients. In today’s competitive business world be very careful when you use email as it’s great for distributing information but horrible as an effective communication tool. Meet with your clients face to face. There is no substitute!

3. Learn about your client’s perception of value. Start by asking them questions about the decisions they will be making at some point in the future and then listen carefully. The following are but a few examples:

a. What business decisions will you be making in the future? (Month, year(s) etc.)
i. Equipment, personnel, product lines, locations, etc.
ii. Sale, acquisitions, merger, etc.
b. What are your personal goals and what decisions do you need to make to get where you want to be?
i. What are your plans for retirement?
ii. Where are your children going to college?
iii. Are you comfortable with your liquidity and reserves if your business experiences a downturn?

4. Assist your clients by helping them make the decisions that make their life better. The cognitive process (how we think) results in the acquisition of knowledge, experience and problem solving ability. When you participate with your clients in making decisions their experience with you will be positive and they will want to repeat the process when the next decision needs to be made. You can participate by:

a. Furnishing pertinent information.
b. Analyzing and synthesizing complex financial information to make it more understandable to the client.
c. Giving your clients your best selfless professional advice. (Independence for your attest clients must also be a consideration)

5. Remember that we think as we speak so I recommend that accountants start talking more about “service” and a little less about “selling” when discussing how to implement an extraordinary client service strategy. Get everyone in the firm involved and make sure they understand their roles and responsibilities for exceptional client service.

Once you develop and implement an exceptional client service strategy in your practice you will soon find that clients are happier, making more referrals and gladly paying their fees. It could well be the most important strategic decision you ever make to truly differentiate your firm. Your competition will not know what happened or how to compete effectively, guaranteed!

HOW TO REALLY DIFFERENTIATE YOURSELF AND YOUR FIRM

When I’m working at a retreat, a seminar or speaking at a conference just about everyone in attendance rushes out of the door at the break and immediately calls their voice mail. Once they come back in the room I usually ask them why they are so tied to their voice mail and now email. The answer is always the same, “To provide my clients with great client service” but is this really the case? More often than not there eventually will be a client service failure when an individual tries to use a reactionary client service strategy. This is especially true as an accountant grows their practice and their managed work increases significantly. I wonder how an accountant can go to the office every day with the client service strategy that they are going to react to 50, 100 or even more clients they are serving.

EMERGENCY ROOM SERVICE MODEL

The reactionary service model is used in emergency rooms in hospitals; they staff up and wait to see who comes through the door. If you have been to an emergency room lately you have seen that during certain times there are few patients but on the weekend, especially during the night, the waiting area is overflowing and patients are upset about the length of time it will take to be seen. Does this sound like how it is around your office during the middle of tax season? We have the best of intentions however at these times we are just not able to deliver our services to our clients as well as we would like. Almost universally, managing partners tell me that the quality of their client service is not where they would like it to be.

There is one very big difference between our work and the work performed in an emergency room; our work is not dealing with life or death. Some client work might be urgent but most of the work we do is routine, predictable and can be scheduled. Why then are we using a very expensive and hard to manage client service model to deliver our services?

I DON’T KNOW WHEN THE CLIENT WILL GET THE INFORMATION TO ME
The greatest pushback I get from most accountants is that they simply don’t know when their clients will get required information to them. As a result most accountants must react to the actions of their clients rather than execute their own client service strategy which can be very risky. I like to improve my odds of being successful more often rather than less often. In my opinion outstanding client service is the one true differentiator of compliance based practices. Outstanding client service involves defining and then managing your client’s expectations about your services. If you don’t take the time to tell them what to expect they will develop their own expectations which in many cases is not reality.




MANAGING CLIENT EXPECTATIONS

Several years ago my wife had to have some very serious surgery and was understandably worried, concerned and anxious. On the morning of the surgery her young surgeon visited her in the pre-op area of the hospital and we both listened intently as he told us about the surgery and how he planned to accomplish it successfully, what would happen in the recovery room, the pain management epidural in her back that would be used for 3 days and how she would experience significantly increased pain when they removed it and finally, how they would use oral pain medications to again control the pain. He literally painted a picture of the process and clearly managed our expectations and on the third day after surgery when they removed the epidural and she began to experience significant pain I was able to reassure her that it was only temporary and to try to relax and not panic. This young surgeon was a master at managing client expectations; wise beyond his years. It then struck me “This is one reason we don’t always meet client expectations in public accounting because we don’t tell them what to expect”. How could anyone know exactly what our services are and how they will be provided unless we tell them?

SETTING EXPECTATIONS

Partners tell me that they aren’t able to communicate client service expectations to their clients mainly citing three reasons:

1. My clients will not comply with my expectations as to when I will receive their information so why try.
2. If I try to hold my clients accountable and responsible for their required information they might choose to use another accountant that won’t have such a requirement.
3. What happens if we can’t perform as promised?

After hearing these excuses I usually ask them what would happen if they had a dental appointment today and called their dentist stating they couldn’t be there for today’s appointment but will be able to be there at the same time tomorrow. Of course they laugh and say that’s not possible as it might take a month or two to get another non-emergency appointment. This is just my point. The dentist and for that matter most other professionals are better at managing their client’s expectations. Would we change dentists if they told us we couldn’t have another appointment at the same time tomorrow? Of course not as we value the relationship we have with them. As a profession we need to get much better at managing our routine services and not making every engagement a fire drill. Getting the work done becomes too stressful, our employees burn out and our client service suffers.

DIFFERENTIATE YOURSELF AND YOUR FIRM
Delivering a quality product is the minimum ethical and legal requirement for CPAs. Delivering that minimum requirement makes a firm just like everyone else. I do know that a few firms have quality issues but that is clearly a much greater problem than being differentiated in the marketplace. If you really want to stand out in the crowded world of public accounting you have to have client service at a level significantly higher than your competition.

CLIENT SERVICE

As Susan Scott says in her great book Fierce Conversations, you must have great conversations to have great relationships. Break through service starts by having great conversations with your clients. When was the last time you sat down with your best clients off the clock and had a conversation like this?

I want to provide you with the absolute best service and the greatest value possible for the fees you pay me. In order to meet that objective I need to know what decisions you anticipate having to make in the near future and in the long-term with regard to your personal goals and your business?

These conversations are essential because they define your client’s current life situation and their value perspective. Without the conversation you can only speculate about what is really important to them.

After learning more about what they want and where they are going you can participate by helping them get where they want to go and achieve their goals. Your value will skyrocket in the eyes of the client as their perception of your service increases.

Action steps to differentiate yourself and your firm.

• Over deliver and under promise
• Explain your service to your clients
• Change your voicemail daily telling your clients about your availability
• Schedule time to meet with your clients to discuss their life and how you can help
• Pick up the telephone and call your clients to discuss your services. Email isn’t as nearly as effective
• Create a culture of client service in your firm
• Survey your clients and make it easy for them to give you feedback

There are many more ideas to improve client service but these should give you a start.

AS always I would very much like your thoughts and feedback.