Tag Archive for: CPA

The Value of Client Feedback: Spoiler—It’s Not Only about Clients

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Recently, we’ve added the following polling question to our CPE webinars: “Does your firm have a formalized survey process for gathering client feedback?” More than 80% of respondents say they don’t.

Client feedback goes beyond electronic satisfaction surveys and net promoter scores. Meaningful intel on how your clients feel about their relationship with your firm is a key driver of client loyalty. But beyond that, there is another strategic purpose to gathering client feedback: staff retention.

A New Outcome of Client Feedback: Reduced Turnover

Firms that take time to formalize a process of gathering client feedback, evaluating consistencies and making purposeful choices about what to incorporate are better able to empower their team members to provide a meaningful experience. In contrast, firms that have no formalized way to evaluate what is important and what isn’t generally suffer (or more accurately, your people suffer) from the pressure of making every complaint, exception or suggestion appear equal. Your people may kill themselves trying to address every item individually causing redundancies, inefficiencies, employee burnout and, yes, turnover.

Client feedback is actually a path to better staff retention and even contributes to your ability to recruit and hire new people. A formalized process can be a real differentiator for your firm. We’ve helped firms large and small design, build and refine their client feedback processes. What’s common among them is a need to address the gap between learning and application. To glean value from the feedback leaders need to commit to applying what they learn by making systemic changes and engaging in training on the outcomes to be delivered. That’s where the magic happens.

Not only are there staff retention improvements, increasing the lifetime value of your client base by enhancing client retention levels significantly impacts your firm’s ability to grow its top-line because you aren’t constantly replacing revenue from clients that are leaving the firm. And loyal clients will refer business to you and serve as a reference if you ask…making it easier to attract new relationships as well.

Finally, working with loyal clients who recognize the value of the relationship with your firm, seek your counsel, are fun to serve and take your advice create for a very fulfilling practice. They create interesting professional opportunities and an enjoyable atmosphere. Who wouldn’t want to practice public accounting in an environment like that?

Understanding Satisfaction vs Loyalty

Satisfaction and loyalty are related, but not the same. Satisfaction is often tied to a project or engagement. Loyalty is tied to the relationship. Both are important – you can’t have loyalty without satisfaction first. But loyalty helps to insulate the relationship from brief periods of dissatisfaction. If I’m a loyal client, I’ll allow you the opportunity to fix a satisfaction issue. I may even become more loyal if the issue is resolved quickly and to my liking. However, if I’m merely satisfied, and then become dissatisfied I’m more likely to look for an alternative service provider because there is nothing else tethering me to the firm.

So ask yourself, “what are the proactive measures we are taking as a firm to measure and improve client loyalty?” If the answer is “not much” or “I’m not sure” you any want to consider starting at the beginning by understanding what your clients value in a relationship, and how you’re doing delivering in those key areas.

How do You Know What Clients Value? Ask!

Coordinated efforts to improve client service can yield some of the greatest returns on investment of any growth activity. To be most effective, any effort related to improving client service should germinate from feedback from your best clients. Often when firms measure satisfaction, they focus on engagement satisfaction. How satisfied were they with the outcome? How did they enjoy the experience of working with your team? What could you do differently? How would they rate the deliverables? While important, these surveys don’t adequately measure the satisfaction with the relationship—which is what drives loyalty.

Consider a formalized program to regularly learn the following from your clients:

  • What attributes of service do they associate with your firm?
  • What attributes of service are most important to them in hiring a CPA?
  • How satisfied are they with your firm’s delivery of the attributes that are most important?

Don’t leave the task of evaluating feedback to your people in an ad hoc way. Put your team first by making strategic choices about what feedback is material, and what isn’t and then create systems, processes, training and tools that will enable them to deliver. Also, make sure that when you receive positive feedback about one of your team members you share it with the rest of the firm. (Create a culture of kudos!) Positive feedback goes a long way in creating goodwill with individuals and within the firm as a whole. In doing these things, clients will begin to see and feel the difference between your firm and others in the market.

Contact us today to get started on a program for your firm.

 

Learning to Unlearn

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Hold an Unlearning Summit to Find Your Way Forward

This is the time of year when many firms shift their focus from working IN their business (delivering services) to working ON their business (strategy and professional/business development) during a firm or partner retreat. It’s the perfect time for leaders to contemplate what they need to unlearn in order to move the firm forward. In the next three months, ask yourself and your leaders – what critical areas do we need to unlearn?

Learning is adding new skills or knowledge on top of what we already know. Learning is an adaptation or enhancement that doesn’t fundamentally change an existing model. Unlearning is stepping outside of the current model or paradigm to choose a different model, and then relearning under that model. People sometimes shy away from the idea of unlearning because they feel like they failed somehow or that they’ve been “doing it wrong”. But that isn’t the case. We unlearn not because we were wrong before, but because there is new information or thinking that drives a need for change. In every aspect of business there are models that have become outdated. Unlearning is critical to fundamental and lasting change because it not only addresses the ideas that hold us back it also helps to create space in our brain for the relearning that needs to occur.

As you plan your firm’s retreat or firmwide strategy session, consider an Unlearning Summit. The agenda of the Unlearning Summit goes something like this:

  1. Discuss the baseline of where the firm is today in the following buckets: physical locations/ presence, financial performance, specialization, people, and technology and client service.
  2. Ask each leader for his/her input on what they want the firm to look like three years—in terms of the buckets above. How big, in terms of revenue? How many locations? What areas of specialization? Etc.? You can gather this input via a survey ahead of time to encourage honest feedback. Compile a summary of the information along with outlying perspectives. This will give everyone insight into how aligned leaders are on the vision for the firm.
  3. Have participants rate where the firm is today on a scale of 1-10—with 10 being the ideal. Average the scores and then discuss how do you move from where you are today up to the next level (so if your firm is a 7 today, what will it take to become an 8 in the next year).
  4. Now, the fun part. Often this kind of exercise leads to the follow up discuss of what we need to add or change. Instead, pose this question: What do we need to unlearn to make it happen? What mindsets are getting in the way? What processes are working against the vision? What do we need to stop doing and replace with something else?
  5. Make a list of the items and prioritize using the following matrix:

 

 

 

 

 

You can then prioritize and decide which area to tackle first. Answer the following:

    • Who should lead the unlearning?
    • What specifically needs to be unlearned?
    • What (if anything) will replace the thing we are unlearning?
    • What’s in it for our people to unlearn and then re-learn in this area?
    • What will be our new measures of success?
    • What should be the timeline?

Institute an innovation committee to take the idea and explore ways to address the issue. Make this a multi-generational, multi-discipline group and give them the leeway to try some alternatives to existing models. Leaders too must champion the effort and learn to publicly support failure. Maybe you have to unlearn the mindset that being wrong is a negative. This can be hard for CPAs who make a career of accuracy. Henry Ford once said: “failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” We can all benefit from adopting that philosophy as a guiding principle.

Working with someone outside the firm in an unlearning endeavor can be really valuable. You can hire a consultant or ask a leader from another CPA firms in your network/association. You can even ask a client with which you have a deep relationship to facilitate the discussion. Outsiders can challenge the status quo, know what questions to ask and have no personal stake in the existing model.

Areas that May Warrant Unlearning

Here are a few examples of areas in which unlearning exploration may be important (note: don’t limit your thinking to only these areas…they are just to get you started):

  1. Performance evaluation systems: In recent years lots of firms have made efforts to update their systems using technology and even more frequent, real-time feedback vs the old way of doing annual evaluations. Firms learned a new process, timeline and software. Fundamentally, though, they didn’t change their performance evaluation system. They changed how they evaluate. In some instances firms need to unlearn an evaluation system that is based on an outdated view of what is important – letting go of emphasis on technical aspects in favor of more social or communication aspects of their people’s work. For meaningful change to occur the firm may have unlearn what it means to work for the firm – and maybe even unlearn what accounting is – to embrace a new definition.
  2. Advisory: The old model of advice is to answer clients’ questions or to do what they needed when they call. It’s predicated on the practitioner having all the answers. Accountants need to unlearn this model of advisory that entails telling clients what to do (or doing it for them) in favor of a new definition which is bringing ideas to clients before they ask and collaborating with them to make them successful, even if it means the CPA isn’t the one with all the answers. In the future it’s likely there will be more unlearning fundamental to what accounting is and who accountants are.
  3. Client service: As we look back on sheltering in place and social distancing firms are beginning to unlearn the definition of client service. Previously most CPAs thought about client service as all the activities outlined in the engagement letter. But as we all have come to value relationships more. We’re using new tools to communicate. Some firms are unlearning their pragmatic definition of service. They are relearning a definition which includes a more holistic approach to checking on clients’ needs. Practitioners are asking more questions about how clients are getting along mentally: is the client and the client’s family physically well, how else the practitioner can help the client be successful. The profession is unlearning the transactional model of client service in favor of a more relationship-oriented model.
  4. DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion). Many firms are taking a hard look at what biases and hiring processes they need to “unlearn” to take an important step forward in DEI. Beyond simply crafting a statement, they are doing the work to identify how to make meaningful systemic changes.
  5. Remote work. Almost every firm embraced some level of remote work in the past year-and-a-half. There is a significant difference between those that learned how to have employees work from home, and those that have unlearned a definition of “work” that limits where and how it can be done. Probably the most striking difference is a shift from managing processes of work to managing outcomes from work. Firms that manage to outcomes will create tremendous growth opportunities for the people they attract. The value they deliver and the levels of client loyalty the firm achieves will surpass levels of those that did not unlearn the old mindset.

Some of the things your firm needs to unlearn to move forward may be even more difficult because they are less well defined and less linear. They feel uncomfortable because they challenge people to re-think what they have always been taught or what they believe. The profession has spent decades learning and refining the current systems. But the landscape has changed and it’s time to unlearn some of those ideas that may now keep the profession from moving forward. This year use your firm retreat to evaluate what you should unlearn. Don’t try to tackle all the unlearning at once. In the next three months instead of focusing on what you need to add or learn in your firm, identify what must be unlearned in order to make space for relearning.

Securing Client Loyalty in Uncertain Times

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The 2020 coronavirus pandemic has created a lot of uncertainty. In addition to our daily routines being thrown into disorder, the accounting profession is uniquely affected in so many ways. Deadlines are shifting. Rules are changing. Even that which seemed straightforward is open to interpretation (like payroll costs!). There is comfort and security in routine, and now that has been disrupted. But, now is a perfect opportunity to strengthen client relationships and secure their loyalty. After taking care of your employees and mobilizing for their safety and well-being, your next focus should be clients. Here are some practical actions to take sooner, rather than later.

A Lifeline in Uncharted Waters

Your clients are your firm’s lifeline and will continue to be through the months ahead. And in many ways you are theirs as well.  When there is uncertainty people will turn to people they know for help as opposed to seeking out new relationships. They will count on those they trust most – like you.  So if you haven’t already been checking in on your clients’ well-being it’s time to start. Do not put it off until you think the economic picture is clearer or the “unknowns” become certain (which is likely to take a very long time). Instead call, or better yet video-conference, with your clients to see how they are faring. Ask how their families, friends and coworkers are doing. Be prepared for them to vent if needed—and let them.

If you create a stronger dialogue with your clients, you’ll be in a better position to offer relevant help and support as they navigate their way through the uncharted waters ahead. And the more they appreciate your support; the more loyal they’ll be to you. They may even recommend other clients to you who are not having the same experience.

Here are some other ways to support clients in the weeks and months ahead:

  1. Talk with them – your clients probably won’t know the full impact of the pandemic yet, but they probably will have a sense of the immediate repercussions and/or opportunities. Find out what these are. How can you help? Even if you don’t have the expertise to help, can you connect them with a resource? Can you provide information that will help them access the help they need elsewhere?
  2. Focus on certainty in the short-term – the world is still turning and people will still need certain products and services. Some of your client may be offering these products and services – so help them understand how the current environment affects their demand. There are also some opportunities to help clients navigate government relief packages in the short term. Finally, help your clients think differently about their business and be a resource to them as they pivot. For example, are there decisions clients can make now to enable them to move forward down a certain path (maybe without all the information, but with enough) vs taking a “wait and see” approach for everything?
  3. Support their longer-term scenario and contingency planning – your clients will want to reduce risk as much as possible and having a course of action for various scenarios helps. It’s likely there are many ways your firm can help: re-forecasting, cash management, financial statement preparation and other CAS and advisory services will be at the forefront ways you can help. The CARES act also offers opportunities for specialty services such as cost segregation, nexus consulting and planning, SALT and R&D credits which may also be useful to your clients based on their situation. During the last recession there was an increased demand for insolvency and bankruptcy consulting. It will be important to find ways to involve less experienced staff as much as possible so think about what you can delegate to your team members.
  4. Continue to stay on top of the issues which will affect them – these could be state-based, industry, organizational or even personal issues. Be alert to how the latest developments may impact on them and offer timely, relevant advice or support when it’s needed. The more you understand about your clients, the more relevant issues you’ll spot. Make everyone on your team part of the effort by encouraging knowledge share internally and defining a process for how/when/where it occurs. Better yet, let your younger staff define and communicate the process!
  5. Be accessible – if it’s difficult to get hold of you and your team, clients may lose some faith in you. Although you may not have all the answers to their questions, being available and listening to them is important. Especially if your people are working in an environment (remote) which is different from the norm, it’s critical to make sure clients know how to reach their primary contact(s). A word of warning, this does not mean you must offer 24/7 access. As your people adjust to working from home it’s tempting to blur the boundary between home time and work time. Allow your people to set their “office hours”— those times in which they commit to taking calls. Establish and communicate (or reiterate) to clients and your employees your firm’s responsiveness policy. Your people are stressed and worried enough so don’t pile on by making them feel like they are constantly on call.
  6. Do what you say you’ll do, when you said you’d do it – accountability is one of the pillars of trust. Now more than ever clients want to be able to count on something…and that something is you. Minimize client turnover by ensuring you continue delivering a high-quality service they have come to know from you. This is the time to ask your clients what they need from the relationship (not the services they need, but attributes of the service like accessibility, being proactive, candidness, etc.). If your definition of what you think they need and their definition of what they thing they need are not the same they may be disappointed with their experience and seek an alternative.
  7. Think about alternative payment terms – If your firm has practiced some kind of prepayment strategy for services your firm is likely in a better cash situation than firms that have not. However, before clients start asking for fee reductions, identify the “A” clients you want to invest in so you know which clients you should be willing to make fee concessions for if the issue comes up. Be ready with a plan to talk with these clients so you are not taken by surprise if they ask. You don’t want to discount the fees of a “D” client in bad times and perpetuate the pain going forward. So as difficult as it may seem when you are managing cash flow, be willing to let some of those clients go.

We recommend when a client asks about reduced fees, first explore changes in scope that can impact the total fee. For example:

  • Will a review be okay for a year or two vs. an audit?
  • Can we do a collateral only audit vs. a full scope engagement?
  • Can we arrange a term payment plan for the fees to make it easier?

Most importantly, be willing to talk with clients about fees. Don’t hesitate, or act angry that they asked or assume the client wants a reduction. Empathize. Strategize. If you have to invest in a client, make sure they know it is a temporary situation and you are willing to do it because they are an important client of the firm and you want to help.

Doubling down on client loyalty will help steady your firm during this time of transition and enable you to deliver the kind of value that ensures clients for life.

Three Key Elements to Cross-Serving Your Clients

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At the risk of sounding harsh I’m going to lay an honest truth out for you: your clients and prospects, don’t want your services. As matter of fact, they couldn’t care less about your services. While that may be disheartening to professionals who are not only passionate about what they do but also eager to create opportunities to grow, it is in fact the truth. An audit isn’t and never will be at the top of any executive’s wish list. They aren’t seeking new methods of accounting because they find it interesting.

Clients and prospects are, however, desperate for solutions to their pressing business challenges. They stay awake at night thinking about them—contemplating their next move, lamenting over opportunities they’re not sure how to seize, fretting over their changing competitive landscapes, wondering how they will finance their expansion.

These are your clients’ and your prospects’ needs. And therein lies a disconnect for many firms looking to increase client loyalty and attract new clients.

Professionals think about what they do for clients in terms of services. They bring ideas to clients in the form of services they can provide to help clients. In fact, many professionals talk about “being proactive” as a differentiator in the way they serve clients, and they define proactively serving clients as bringing them new service ideas. Even if these services are based on the client’s situation, or what in your professional opinion you know the client should be focused on, until you are able to connect that service to a business need with which the decision maker identifies it’s a service, but not a solution to anything.

Rather than cross-selling, maybe we should think of this as cross-serving. Here’s what cross serving looks like:

  1. Understanding what your client cares about

In order to understand what clients care about we need to ask questions. Cultivate a curiosity to learn whatever you can about your clients. Think about, and even write down, the questions you would like to ask. Construct those questions as open-ended – meaning questions that require more than a one-word response. Don’t limit your questions to the engagement, or area you care about. Instead ask question that encourage them to share what’s on their mind: “What accomplishments made you most proud this year?” “How did you feel about your year?” “What are your goals for this coming year?” These don’t need to be limited to financial or even professional areas. Let you clients just talk. And do not jump into trying to solve the first thing you hear. The first priority is just to understand what’s important to your clients.

  1. Articulating how what you do connects to those things your clients care about

This opens professionals to a whole world of creative possibilities for helping clients. Conversations with clients about how you apply your experience and expertise to help them address their business challenges, perhaps in ways they haven’t considered, helps deepen the relationship, builds trust and supports the firm’s topline growth.

If I’m your client, and you come to me with a service – that’s your agenda. When you come to me with a solution – that’s my agenda. Truly client-driven firms build processes and tools to interact with clients, and to bring up ideas based on their professional experience and expertise. What does cross solving look like?

  1. Remembering to help capitalize on opportunities – not just identify problems

CPAs are really good at identifying problems – material weaknesses, errors, etc. – and get pretty excited about helping clients solve them. And in your profession this is critical and something your clients count on. However, I encourage you to actively pursue the idea of opportunistic thinking. Most entrepreneurs, owners and business leaders are motivated by opportunities vs threats. Solving “problems” tends to appeal to folks who are motivated by threats. And yes, some of your clients fall into that category. But to be a true advisor for clients you need to pay attention to finding creative opportunities to strive for in addition to issues to solve.

Cross-serving clients not only fosters greater loyalty and topline growth, it’s a more full-filling and rewarding way to practice your profession. Win-win, don’t you think? To learn skills, tools and processes to tap into this opportunity, take a look at our professional development courses, or contact us today at info@thewhetstonegroup.com to find out about our coaching services and how we can help you.