September 2002a- Each month this page will be updated with new tips and ideas and the previous content archived. As time goes by our archives will grow. These will always be accessible, and always without charge. Enjoy.

Welcome to the free tips page for September 2002

As far as I'm aware, it's no crime to offer such extraordinary service that clients become addicted to it.

While it may be beneficial in some other industries, adding nicotine to the fees we charge or the financial statements we produce for clients will do nothing to enhance the dependency of the client upon you and your firm.

Only one ingredient will do that, and it's not on any restricted list. It is, quite simply, "awesome client service."

How many minutes would it take, in a meeting among you and your partners, to fill a dozen pages of a flip chart with concrete benefits that would accrue to your firm if you were known for providing awesome client service?

What do you think the results of providing awesome client service should be?

• Would you get more or fewer referrals from existing clients?
  
  
• Would clients be more or less likely to pay your bills, on time?
  
  
• Would clients be more or less likely to complain about the amount of your fees, the quality of your service and the time frames involved?
  
  
• Would you be more vulnerable to lawsuits for malpractice?
  
  
• Would clients be more likely or less likely to truly appreciate you?
  
  
• Would you be more or less likely to keep clients for longer?
  
  
• Would your clients be more or less susceptible to approaches from your competitors?

Well, then … if the benefits are so obvious, why is awesome client service amongst accounting firms so rare?

I believe that it is because the accounting profession is fraught with barriers and obstacles that discourage us from providing what we all know would be beneficial.

It's in-bred from our first day as a trainee in the office. We're told: "Here is your time sheet, each day MUST add up to at LEAST 8 chargeable hours a day".

Ask your clients how many times they've been approached by your competitors, and pursued aggressively. And then ask yourself if you can continue to be complacent about keeping your clients happy, on a day-by-day basis.

Even though there are notable exceptions to each of the challenges described below, most of us fall prey to a good number of them, it seems that we just can't help ourselves.

• Accountants are trained to be accountants - not client relations experts. Sorry, but that means too many of us behave like geeks and not enough like caring professional service providers.
  
  
• The billable hour is so sacred that non-billable activities are denigrated. We starve the client relationship in favour of getting another hour billed.
  
  
• Accountants believe that clients are focused only on solutions. We therefore get to the challenge at hand without worrying about optics.
  
  
• Clients are really focused on effort. We conceal most of ours.
  
  
• Most Accountants bill in unimaginative ways (hourly-based). We frequently either under-bill or over-bill when compared to the VALUE the client has received for the service provided.
  
  
• Clients will happily pay fees commensurate with the value of services offered. That would allow us to "afford" some client relations time.
  
  
• We are starved of client contact from our first days in the office, only when we attain our designation are we suddenly expected to be able to develop existing clients and acquire new ones.
  

It's A Matter Of Choice.

How do you choose to whom you should provide awesome client service?

My mother always told me, "Put your family first." Good, sound matrimonial advice. If you want your marriage to last, you invest in your spouse and make him or her your main focus.

But when it comes to clients, most of us are bigamists. We simply don't stop at one! Unless you believe you put all your clients first, then I'm going to take a risk and advocate discrimination. (Don't worry, this sort of discrimination will not offend.)

Some of you may assert: "Nonsense! We must put all clients first." I do not yet understand all the principles of quantum mechanics, and therefore the multiple universe theory may support the notion that all clients can be first.

For those who can execute this notion to perfection, my unqualified admiration. For the rest of us, we may need to narrow our focus by learning to prioritize.

We have to decide whom to really put first. This may be partially a dynamic exercise similar to a hospital emergency room - the patient seen first is not a function of comparing that patient to all patients, but to the other patients in the emergency room at that moment.

Most firms don't have emergency wards (unless you're an insolvency practitioner). In the practice of tax and accounting, our patients tend to be manifested by a creature called "The File."

Electronic or paper, this creature has amazing powers.

The right file can cause physiological changes to us just by looking at it - tighten our stomach muscles, raise our heart and respiratory rates - just by catching our eye as we sweep a look over our domain.

The file most resembles the emergency room patient when the client represented by the file deigns to phone or e-mail, fax or, write. When this occurs, one might be required to do an on-the-spot assessment like our doctor friends.

However, between such "emergencies," we might consider prioritizing our clients this way.

Feel free to shuffle the list - it's your judgment call, not mine - but I hope the criteria might be helpful:

Client Preference Criteria

• Clients who have the capacity to give us future work, either directly or by referral.
  
  
• Clients over a certain fee level.
  
  
• Clients who will enhance our reputation simply by being associated with them.
  
  
• Clients who have the kind of work that forces us to continuously learn.
  
  
• Clients who are in industries we enjoy serving, and know something about. Call it a "niche market". (More about serving niche markets later.)
  
  
• Clients who can afford to pay for the value we give them.
  
  
• Clients we like.

We might exclude those who do not meet these criteria, including clients who feel it necessary to test the limits of ethics and propriety on every file, or clients who habitually moan and bitch about the level of fees charged or the timescales involved in completing their assignment.

We will cover in detail how these clients can either be converted to our preferred list or not as the case may be during our journey together.

The clients who do not make it to your awesome client service list should be treated well (like a cousin) but they may not deserve of you the time and effort that it takes to really make them "first" (like your spouse).

How Can We Provide Awesome Client Service?

Now that you've narrowed the field to those whom you are going to "spoil," you need to commit to spending some non-billable time on doing just that.

There are hundreds and hundreds of ideas in the TACS modules, but here is the starter list of five ideas that you can implement today to get started:

1. Visit their place of business.

2. Ensure your team knows the names of the client's key individuals.

3. Initiate a rapid response procedure:

- Respond within half a business day, maximum.
- Give the client pager/cell/emergency contact options.
- Send regular status reports on progress of the client's matter.

4. Learn about the industry of the client.

- Subscribe to the client's preferred business publications and read them.
- Attend the client's preferred industry seminar (just one annually).
- Have the client in to teach you about his/her business.

5. Talk fees and fee arrangements and satisfaction guarantees.

Don't think too much and act too little! If this introduction has suggested a few ideas worth considering, it remains worthless unless and until you "execute" one of the ideas (just one) that appeals to you personally.

Once you have implemented the first idea, move on to work on the second, and so on.

Our Towards Awesome Client Service program will look at all of these, and many more, over the course of the 4 modules, and we will help you prioritize each one along the way.

Don't close the page on this introduction until you've thought of at least one thing you're going to do as a result of reading this.

When you have done that, you have joined the ranks of winners. Like Tiger Woods and Estée Lauder, they are not famous for what they have thought. They are famous for what they have done.

It's never the one thing you do 100% better than your competitors that makes a difference. To do something 100% better than another CA or CPA firm just isn't realistic. It's the 100 things you do 1% better.

Let me give you an example.

A horse than runs a race and wins by a nose isn't 100% better than the horse that came second by a nose.

The winning horse may collect $100,000 in prize money and the horse that came second might collect just $10,000 for its owners. The difference in prize money is a ratio of ten to one, but the difference in times was a nose (maybe half a second).

In fact, this study has already been done. Over a season a team of statisticians studied two horses that ran in the same races. One horse went on to win over a million dollars in prize money for the season, the other just $50,000.

That's a ratio of 20:1.

Yet, when the times of the horses were accumulated, the difference was that the horse with the winnings 20 times that of the other was just 3% faster.

The smallest of differences made a huge difference to the total value of prize money earned, and future stud earnings of that horse compared to another that was 97% as good in the times it recorded.

And so it is with our practice.

We need to be just a few percentage points better than our competitors in order to achieve far better results.

It's the firm that does just one more seminar, returns client messages a few minutes faster, writes one more article for the press, provides that little extra effort or value or attends just one more business function.

There are hundreds of items we could discuss that we could do maybe 1% or 2% better, and each reader will have their own preferences.

The TACS modules are not intended to be rigid. It's not a case of "do 'A', then 'B' followed by 'C' and you will succeed".

This is more of a menu style approach. TACS contains all of the best practices and ideas, from which you can select specific projects to undertake in the order that has most relevance to you.

Where To Start

The conventional wisdom is that it costs more to get a new client than to keep an old one. And for once, the conventional wisdom is correct. In fact, studies have shown time and again that, on average, it costs five times more to find a new client than it does to sell a new service to an existing client.

Yet, many of us too readily take clients for granted.

We don't look for opportunities to increase revenues from perfectly satisfied clients.

In firms where Partners only get to deal with the client once a year, the realistic situation is that your junior members of staff probably do not have the keen eye for spotting, or even creating, opportunities to cross-sell your services, or up-sell a client to a premium service.

Then there's the classic story of the client who went to another firm for a particular service. When asked: "Why didn't you come to me for that?" the client often responds: "Because I didn't know you did it." It happens all too often.

Let's look at another key reason why we should start with our existing clients.

What Would Happen To Your Firm If Each Client You Acted For Introduced One New Client To You Of Similar Value?

It doesn't take a genius, does it? Your practice could DOUBLE in fee income overnight.

Here's another question:

What Would Happen To Your Firm If Each Client You Acted For Took An Additional Service From You Of Similar Value Each Year?

Again, your firm could double in revenues.

Combine both scenarios and you could quadruple your fee income over a twelve-month period.

So let's be realistic. Based on the above scenarios, would a 20% fee income increase seem achievable?

Yes, I think so too.

For a sole practitioner with say $150,000 fee income, they should have a target of $30,000 in fee growth as a direct result of using the TACS system over the next twelve months.

That's a return on investment of over 15 to 1 ($30,000/$1,995.95). Or if you buy TACS at the time-limited half-price offer, it's 30 to 1.

What better argument is there for buying TACS today?

Find out more by clicking here:

Check out our eBooks:

Our full range of e-books is now available for immediate download. All are now available as "PDF" files AND eBook files - the choice is yours, or download both versions (no extra cost) to see which format you prefer!

Including:

For more details, see our products page

 

So, that's all for now, if you need more, sign up for our free e-newsletter, LEDGER, on our newsletter sign-up page, or look at our best-selling manual LOW COST HIGH IMPACT WAYS TO WIN NEW CLIENTS.

Thanks for visiting.
Have a great month.
Until next time.

More free tips to come as we next update our site in October 2002.