Let’s face it—it’s easy to get absorbed into only focusing on your accounting tasks at hand. But you must know that building and maintaining great relationships with your clientele is vital to the growth, profitability and longevity of your accounting practice.
In fact, a research from Harvard Business School states that increasing your customer retention rates by only 5% will boost your profit by 25%-95%. Therefore, you must keep your clients engaged, happy and satisfied to help improve customer retention, maximise the likelihood of referrals and help your practice gain a positive reputation across the circle of business owners.
How to do that? It’s salient to enhance your accounting workflows, operations and advisory offerings with the tips we will tackle in this blog especially leveraging a modern cash flow tool Moolamore.
Read on.
Ways On How To Build Excellent and Long-Lasting Client Relationships At Your Accounting Firm
Embrace the Benefits of the Moolamore Cash Flow App To Provide Meaningful Reporting and Level Up Your Advisory Services
Remember that your role as an accountant/accounting professional is more than just processing numbers or compiling reports.
Suppose you wish to exceed your clients’ expectations. In that case, you have to give them what they want: help them run their business better with meaningful reporting and become a valuable part of their decision-making process.
Good thing a reliable cash flow management and forecasting tool—Moolamore is always on the rescue!
Moolamore is fast, modern and jam-packed with innovative features like having user-friendly dashboards, what-if scenario builders, automation and comprehensive real-time analysis, efficient report exporting, multi-currency conversions and seamless integrations to other notable accounting software in the market (Xero, MYOB and Quickbooks).
That said, you’ll be able to work with your accounting deliverables more efficiently and become less error-prone. This also gives you an edge in providing your clients with meaningful reports and confidently making recommendations that will be of value to them.
All in all, embracing the benefits of the Moolamore app to streamline your workflow and level up your advisory services also shows that you hold the business of your clients in high esteem and care about providing real value.
Don’t Underestimate Client Discovery: Know and Understand Your Clients Better
If you are shooting in the dark, you won’t be able to offer your help correctly. That’s why it’s salient that you get to know your clients better—their unique stories and goals.
Well, more than just understanding the financial ins and outs of their SME company—you must take the opportunity also to ask questions that will help establish good client relationships, like learning about their:
- Personal and Professional Journey: What motivated them to pursue entrepreneurial ventures? How do they want to see their business in the future? What else is happening in their personal life that may influence the company?
- Comfort Level: Are they confident about discussing their business and its financial standpoint, or do they seem anxious or weary?
- Problems / Challenges: What stresses them out? What are their financial and operational pain points keeping them up at night?
- Expectations: Do they want to scale up or just steady the course? Do they need you to balance the books or sort out financial documents, or are they expecting your advisory services?
- Experience Working With Accounting Professionals: Have they partnered with an accounting professional before you? If they have, what was their experience like? What did they like and dislike? Suppose they’re new to the entire process; ask them what they would want to know more about.
Excellent Communication is Vital
Whether new or existing clients—bear in mind that excellent communication is vital to earning their trust. And trust is the bedrock of every successful relationship. Therefore, you must show them your communication is smooth, available and reliable.
Clients want to feel like a priority, so if they’re getting in touch, ensure you’re available to answer their inquiries and address their concerns. Doing so will also help you avoid common client management pitfalls such as scope creep and guarantee that you’re on track with your clients’ expectations and goals.
Likewise, see to it that your communication process must have varying communication styles and preferences. For example, some clients prefer phone calls, while others always do best with emails.
Be Proactive: Set Aside Time For Checking In With Your Clients
Are you keeping your clients involved and updated? Note that clients will feel more comfortable when they are supported and are up-to-date about your work’s progress, ensuring that you’re delivering what you promised. So don’t leave your clients in the dark- your communication lines must remain open so you can inform them of any developments and updates that may affect their company.
Here are some prominent forms of giving updates:
- Weekly status updates (through quick phone or via email)
- Real-time chat
- Monthly recaps
- Monthly reports
- Automated reminders and assign clients tasks
- Task commencement and completion updates
- Reminders of approaching deadlines
On the other hand, here’s an outline of the things you can discuss when meeting your clients for updates:
- Begin by checking in on how your client is doing personally and professionally.
- Circle back by providing follow-ups on any outstanding items from your last check-in or latest conversations. If it’s a new client, assure them everything is going as expected.
- Now is the time to tackle the main agenda items
- Don’t forget that talking about small and big wins can also help keep the momentum going.
- As a wrap-up, discuss your next steps – what action items are needed to complete and the priorities to follow up on the next check-in.
Get Feedback From Clients and Be Ready To Listen
We know the feeling—getting honest feedback from your clients may seem frightening, but it’s one of the best ways to improve your service, making sure that it matches their needs better. Remember that your clients’ feedback will enable you to learn how they perceive your accounting firm and what they want from your services. It will show which workflows are effective and which need adjustments.
So ask your clients regarding the quality of your service, be ready to listen, take it to heart and use that feedback to offer more things your clients commend while, of course, enhancing the aspects they’re not very happy about.
Thus, requesting feedback from clients will also show that you don’t only care about your bottom line but also want to genuinely understand how you can optimise your accounting practice and service delivery to better support the growth goals and financial success of your clients.
All in all, feedback increases your chances of satisfying clients and maintaining your relationships for the long term.
In Retrospect
Knowing that your clients put their trust in your hands is indeed fulfilling. So make sure you continue to nurture and maintain excellent and lasting relationships with your clients with the tips above, especially embracing the benefits of the Moolamore app. You’re more than just a number cruncher—always strive to become your clients’ valued advisor and strategic partner and win their loyalty. Thanks for reading!
Deliver excellent work and reach a new level of client support and success within your accounting firm. Start using an automated Moolamore app filled with cutting-edge features. Schedule a demo today. Improve your relationships with clients by becoming one of our affiliates too!
