Improving Client Experience in Your Firm

All small business owners, including CPAs and accountants in Pennsylvania, want to keep their customers and clients happy. But that goal requires conscious commitment and concrete steps to make it happen, so it has an impact and grows your business.

Review your technology offerings to identify steps you can take to streamline the customer experience and improve communication. Several programs or systems are almost indispensable for a successful accounting firm.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM): CRM software offers accountants the ability to track existing and potential clients and streamline marketing, onboarding, and customer communication. There are many CRMs on the market offering a variety of functionalities, depending on the level you need. Critical functions include:

• Tracking every feature or characteristic of your client, including personal information, industry, and location in your “buyer’s journey” (prospect, new client, etc.)

• Maintaining records of communications with the client — outgoing, incoming, subject matter

• Tracking projects

• Providing communications platforms — email, blog, calendar, social media

• Remote access for team members working from home

• Meeting scheduling tool linked to calendar

Cloud-based file share and signature tool: Trust is critical in the accounting field. Provide your clients with an encrypted cloud storage and sharing tool, along with digital signature capabilities, for convenience, confidence, and security. PSTAP offers its members a free subscription to VerifylePro™, a premium online sharing and signature system.

Cloud-based accounting platform: Shared platforms allow small businesses to securely share access to bookkeeping and other financial data, allowing you to access their software, generate reports, and collaborate with company employees in real time.

These platforms and software are not intended to replace the personal touch but rather to enhance it. You can automate many outreach efforts to your clients to keep you front of mind, allowing you to make those calls or have those meetings when they are needed without your client feeling forgotten or ignored in between.

Use your technology to automate emails or even generate notes to send on the client’s birthday. Send a note on the client’s anniversary of joining your firm, thank the client for trusting you, and ask if there’s anything else you can do. Include a link to schedule a call or meeting, or to offer suggestions or feedback.

Provide blogs and FAQ on your website, email a summary of the blog or a question from the FAQ, and include a link to “read more.” This gets your client to your website and provides you with a sense of what they’re interested in. Your CRM should collect this data, giving you an opportunity to follow up.

This is just a handful of ways that you can improve your clients’ customer experience. When clients feel remembered and important, and when they are given opportunities to engage with you and share their feedback, their relationship with your firm deepens. They are then more likely to request additional services and to refer their friends.