CREATESPACE TACS Module One: A client service program that wins you new business (Towards Awesome Client Service)

‘…if everyone provided a wonderful service experience to the client, then no clients would ever change firms.’ We all believe that we provide our clients with great service, and most of us do. But the simple truth is, that if everyone provided a wonderful service experience to the client, then no clients would ever change firms. Even those firms who do a wonderful job for their clients sometimes suffer from attrition. Maybe it was the fee offered by a competitor that tempted the client elsewhere. Maybe it was the service promise from the other firm that tempted them away. Or maybe it was simply because they didn’t see the VALUE in what you did for them last year. The skill that separates the thriving practice from the ordinary is this: those firms who implement a system to demonstrate everything that they have done for the client, the savings they have achieved for them and the value they have provided for the fees charged are the ones who will be simply miles ahead of the competition. These firms will keep clients much longer, provide more services to them and receive way more referrals from their clients. We are often not in a position to see the value proposition from the client’s perspective until it’s too late. The public accountant already has more than enough on his or her plate. By running a client-centred practice, a public accounting firm can retain their existing clients for far longer and provide additional services to them. By providing an awesome service experience to these clients, they start to become ‘cheerleaders’ for your firm, always keen to pass referrals on to you. Before long, the client-centred practice sees real growth, both in average fee per client – by virtue of providing additional services to their clients – and by a steady growth in the number of new clients referred to them each year. That is the main objective of ‘Towards Awesome Client Service’. Time and again, the common thread seen is to place too much emphasis on finding new clients, when the practitioner already sits on a huge resource of untapped work and untapped referrals – from their existing clients. I believe it is mostly due to our natural instincts. We were always hunters rather than farmers. Sure, we need to attract additional clients to our firm, and we should have a system in place, with the tools to help us become successful, but the area that can make the biggest difference in the shortest time frame, is to provide a truly excellent service experience to our existing clients, make them aware of the additional services we could provide them and the benefits they could enjoy, and to encourage them to make more referrals to us during the course of the year. When I was in practice, client service was one of the most important issues I learned. Like most of us, I learned the hard way. I made my share of expensive client service mistakes, but I quickly learned from each of them. Each time I documented what I did wrong and what I should do different next time I face a similar situation. I tested the new approaches and new methods, designed spreadsheets to help me keep track and wrote materials and fine-tuned them to the point where I had a genuine system in place to help me succeed. Over the years basic, fundamental issues repeatedly came to the fore, and so I collected, fine-tuned and developed each to form the basis of a complete client referral and up-selling system. In 2002 I decided to publish them as ‘Towards Awesome Client Service’ to offer you the opportunity to get a real jump-start on your competitors. In 2015 I revisited these modules, re-wrote and updated them for the effect of the changes in technology that had occurred. I also gave our website a major overhaul. I love it, and I hope you do to. TACS is intense, it requires commitment and perseverance from you, but it gets results.