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Communication plays a very important role in the client experience and building trust with your client. Your firm’s communication style can make or break a client’s decision to continue employing or referring your firm.
Most of all, SMBs appreciate firms who follow up consistently. In our Accounting Firm Hireability Survey, the three most common reasons that SMBs cited for firing their accounting firms are:
- Having to reach out to their firm more than once to get answers
- The firm not following up when they promised
- Only hearing from their firm when there’s a problem
Similarly, while taking longer than a day to respond is not a reason for SMBs to fire their firm, many firms see it as a reason to stop referring their firm to others.
SMBs are dependent on proactive communication from their accounting firms to help them make informed, often quick decisions. Having to chase down information delays those decisions and can affect their business.
Here are four strategies that you can implement at your firm to ensure proactive client communication:
1: Set expectations early on
The best way to avoid disappointing your clients and avoid falling short of their expectations is to set those expectations early on so that everyone understands them from the beginning.
This can start as early as the sales process, while you’re vetting a potential client. Along with learning about the client’s goals, get an understanding of what they think makes a good partnership with an accounting firm. If their expectations for partnership don’t align with your firm’s values or ability to deliver, they may not be a good fit for your firm.
Once you sign with the client and begin services, make sure that you are all on the same page again and that your expectations are aligned. Give your client a very clear picture of what work, delivery, and communication will look like with your firm—and then consistently follow through.
These expectations and the consistency with which you adhere to them will build the foundation of your relationships with each client and your communication with them going forward.
2: Follow up immediately
Jumping between client meetings and working on different projects can make it difficult to remember what needs to happen next or who is waiting for a response or result. This can lead to lost projects or confused clients.
You may want to consider setting a policy to follow up with clients as soon as the work is finished. The actual application of this policy is up to you—you might just implement it into your routine, or maybe you want to budget a few extra minutes into each project to gather all of your files and draft an email to the client.
This doesn’t just apply to finished work. Did a question pop up once you started working on a client’s project? Do you need clarification? Get in the habit of asking the client as soon as you have a question to ask. This helps you get an answer sooner than later and you can use that time to work on other aspects of the project that don’t require an answer or put it aside to work on a different project.
Of course, things always fall through the cracks, especially when you are busy and have many tasks calling for your attention. But establishing this policy (whether just for yourself or across your firm) and making it a habit to follow up with your clients as soon as possible can help you stay on top of client questions and ensure that your client is always up to date on their projects.
3: Implement a a response time policy
Consider setting a policy at your firm that all client questions should be answered within 24 hours (or by a certain time on Mondays to account for weekend emails).
With this policy in place, your clients will receive responses within a reasonable time frame almost every time. This doesn’t mean that your staff have to have an answer or completed work within the time frame—it just means that they have responded to the client to acknowledge the request.
If the request is simple and your staff member can take care of it right away, then your client walks away knowing your firm is responsive and proactive. If the request is going to take more time to fulfill the request, that should still be communicated to the client within 24 hours. Even without an immediate resolution, your firm can still demonstrate proactivity and responsiveness.
4: Designate staff for each client
Building relationships with your clients is an important part of your services, especially when it comes to client advisory services (CAS). SMBs don’t want to spend time in each meeting a new accountant up to speed on their finances. Plus, having a dedicated staff member helps ensure that they remain familiar and up to date on that client so that they can provide the best advisory.
Similarly, SMBs don’t want to hear from a different person each time they reach out to your firm. This can lead to miscommunication about each client within your firm and lower your clients’s confidence in you and your relationship with them. In fact, 70% of surveyed SMBs said that hearing from a different person each time was a reason to either fire or stop referring their firm.
Having a dedicated staff member to respond to each client has two main advantages:
- Helps avoid client communications slipping through the cracks. If every client has a staff member assigned to look out for emails or calls from them, they can get back to each client more quickly.
- Helps ensure accurate, helpful responses. If the staff member responding to a client is already familiar with their needs and situation, they can provide better responses and build more trust with that client.
Good communication at your firm is the foundation of productive and positive client relationships. Luckily, this is an area that is easy to improve. Using these four tips can help you transform the communication practices at your firm, leading to increased trust, better advisory, and more satisfied clients.
This content is presented “as is,” and is not intended to provide tax, legal or financial advice. Please consult your advisor with any questions.
