With competition abounding for accounting services, your firm needs to hone every marketing advantage available to you. One of the ways you can set your firm apart from the pack is to create a memorable client experience starting with your first interaction through the entirety of the relationship.
How do you foster a memorable accounting client experience? Here are 4 marketing tips to differentiate your accounting firm from the competition:
- Make a great first impression. Like an social situation, your first impression a potential client gets about your accounting firm can come from many different avenues. Strive to make all of them impressive. Is your website fresh and look legitimate? Are your client service reps easy to talk to
on the phone? Does your social media offer timely, relevant information? Is your lobby clean and organized? All details matter. A poor initial impression may drive your potential tax client to the competition without a second thought.
- Manage the outcome. With every prospect and client interaction, there are three potential outcomes: positive, negative and neutral. In all cases, your goal must be to leave them feeling positive about your and your accounting firm. Unfortunately, many limit themselves by removing the positive outcome right off the bat. For example, assume you receive a call from a prospective client looking to hear about you and a new tax and accounting service. The employee that handles the service is not available, and you are limited in your knowledge. The worst thing you can say is, “I’m sorry, the person responsible for the service is not here at the moment.” In the prospect’s mind, you immediately removed the possibility of a positive outcome! Instead, engage the prospect to hear about their needs, gather as much information as possible, and commit to finding the answers for them and calling them back immediately.
- Search for useful feedback. No matter how well you strive to offer top-notch client service, there will always be some instances that are less than favorable. Often clients are more than willing to tell you about it, but you need to have a system in place if you want to hear their story in a helpful way. This can be as simple as response cards at the front desk or an automated email campaign looking for feedback. Encourage loyal clients to let you know how you are doing so you get a holistic view of your performance.
- Turn problems into opportunities. Knowing your strengths can reaffirm your approach and help you set client service performance goals. On the other hand, learning about a bad experience from a client’s perspective will give you great insight into how you can improve. Use these problems to focus your activity. Over time the results of this continual improvement can have a tremendous
impact on your firm’s reputation.
Creating a culture that excels at client marketing retention that provides a memorable client experience is attainable if you put in the effort to know your clients’ needs and understand that every impression matters! Getting automated feedback has never been easier with Practice Panda’s automated review email campaigns. Request a personalized demo today to learn more.
