Prior to my recent presentation at Accountex, I carried out a small survey targeting business owners on social media. The aim was to get a client’s perspective on how well they rated their accountants on different forms of communication.
The survey had two questions from which respondents had to give a score of between 1 and 10, 1 being poor, 10 being excellent. The questions were:
- How well does your accountant communicate with you when doing your accounts, tax returns, payroll, one-off assignments etc.?
- How proactive is your accountant in keeping you informed throughout the year of business and/or tax information which could be relevant to you?
The results were as follows:
Q1. How well does your accountant communicate with you when doing your accounts, tax returns, payroll, one-off assignments etc.?
|
Score out of 10 |
% of Respondents |
|
9 – 10 |
60% |
|
6 – 8 |
27% |
|
3 – 5 |
13% |
| 1 – 2 |
0% |
So the majority of business owners scored their accountant high (9 or 10 out of 10) for how they communicated with them when they were carrying out chargeable work. However, over a quarter of them thought there was room for improvement, with the remaining 13% suggesting that they were not happy, although no-one scored their accountant less than 3 out of 10.
Q2. How proactive is your accountant in keeping you informed throughout the year of business and/or tax information which could be relevant to you?
|
Score out of 10 |
% of Respondents |
|
9 – 10 |
40% |
|
6 – 8 |
33% |
|
3 – 5 |
0% |
| 1 – 2 |
27% |
When it comes to client care/marketing type communications it would appear that some accountants need to be a lot more proactive. Whilst 40% of business owners scored their accountant 9 or 10, over a third thought there was room for improvement and over a quarter scored them only 1 or 2 out of 10 for proactively communicating – ouch!
So how do you think your clients would rate you? The acid test would be to ask them, or I can ask them for you!
Additional comments received
Some business owners also left comments about their experience with their accountants. These included:
“I feel like I’m the one chasing them for information.”
“Too cold and business like. Only ever formal emails. I wouldn’t mind being part of a Facebook Group of her clients or getting newsletters or something more chatty to keep me in the loop.”
“Communication is infrequent. Having said that, they are always very responsive by email or by phone when I need help.” This business owner went on to say, “Using an App like Xero helps save time and improve transparency. This means communication about issues is faster than it was before. It’s made me think though that perhaps I should have at least a quarterly, more qualitative communication.”
“I changed my accountant recently – my new accountant gets on with it, is proactive and saved me £000’s in tax!”
One thing which some of these comments highlight is that in this digital age, don’t forget your clients still value the personal touch.
Not only is a lack of communication outside of chargeable work poor client care, you may also be missing out on the opportunity to help your clients with other services. You could be missing out on securing additional fees from your clients, or at worst you could risk losing them altogether if they think another accountancy firm has got more of the services they need.
So, what changes do you need to make to your communications to bring your clients closer to you?
