Accountants, CPAs, and tax professionals have many customer service needs to focus on while running successful small businesses. 

As a financial service provider, not only do you need to hone your skills and generate results for your clients, but you also need to develop better communication, soft skills, and customer perks. These qualities can improve your referrals and allow clients to experience interactions that motivate them to return for years.

When your time and resources are limited, how can you offer high quality customer service that strengthens relationships?

Check out some of these tips for improving customer experiences and creating more value for your company.

Excellent Customer Service for Accounting Firms—Why is It Important?

As an accountant or tax advisor, you might think that most relevant work is behind the scenes. Clients require assistance with filing taxes, managing portfolios, and handling financial exchanges, which often take place in the background. 

Without personal touches, these experiences are just that—basic transactions that don’t offer longevity or service expectations. 

To truly grow and expand your business, you need workable customer service tips that benefit both you and your clients. Here’s how to achieve that and build trust.

Tip 1: Deliver High Quality Marketing Experiences

When you want to attract business clients, you need to create unique marketing content that differentiates your firm from competitors. Your marketing initiatives should serve at least two purposes:

• Enhance the strength of your brand
• Provide helpful, practical, and educational material that serves customer needs in real world scenarios

While it goes without saying that your marketing campaigns should gather information about leads and prospects, don’t forget the main goal. 

What information is your ideal client looking for? What marketing messages truly resonate with their current situation—and perhaps the financial problems or questions they want to solve?

A comprehensive marketing plan takes many channels into account and connects them strategically. Consider how to leverage your website, blog (and other free resources), social media channels, and email nurturing for valuable customer impact. 

Tip 2: Invest in a Modern Workflow

Marketing might be what gets your new clients in the door, but how can you keep them happy enough to keep the relationship going? Making smart investments in how you perform and process incoming work is one way to do this.

Exceptional customer service isn’t only about communication. It’s also about how the process works from beginning to end. According to retail research from Forbes, outcomes like resolution rate and response time contribute to customer happiness and satisfaction.

As a busy firm, it’s sometimes difficult to achieve these outcomes when you’re relying strictly on manual or paper-based processes. Accountants that invest in workflow technologies can make life easier for their team and clients. In practice, this looks like:

• Digitalization of paper documents
• Secure online uploads for new financial statements and attachments 
• Real-time notifications or alerts between client and provider
• Streamlined administrative communication with fast response times
• Helpful reminders during important times, like tax season

Tip 3: Onboard with User Experience in Mind

Accounting firms also need an answer for how to bring new clients online. To create alignment between onboarding and your other client-facing processes, make these steps digital.

Once again, transparent communication paves the way for better long-term user experiences. To onboard new customers easily, think about the steps that happen between initial inquiry and performing services for a client.

• Initial lead response – How do you respond to new inquiries from inbound sources?
• Client discovery and exploration – Is your accounting firm or tax practice the right fit for specific clients?
• Agreement to terms – How do you deliver contracts to new clients?
• Outline of expectations – What does the future of the relationship look like?

Tip 4: Automate the Client's Experience with Self-Service

Your accounting and tax clients will differ in terms of their technology backgrounds and capabilities. To better assist those who are looking to move quickly, self-service options can help.

Self-service accounting options put your clients in charge. Whether you carry this out through customer portals, help documentation, or FAQ libraries on your website, give clients the tools they need to have a positive experience alongside your team.

A client-facing portal, like ClientHub from CountingWorks, puts everything in one place. From document uploads, to messaging, to calendar scheduling, you can give more power, trust, and transparency to customers.

Tip 5: Evaluate Goals and KPIs Regularly (Plus Gather Client Feedback)

You can apply numerous customer service tips and tactics to keep clients happy. Without measuring impact, however, how will you actually know what’s working for your business?

First, regularly evaluate the customer service metrics and key performance indicators that you want to improve. If initial lead response rates have been historically slow, measure those rates over several quarters. As you check in, are your response times improving? What factors are helping you reach your goal?

Next, ask your customers for their input. In this step, gather qualitative feedback from the people that are directly benefiting from your services as a tax or accounting professional. Which experiences are they satisfied with the most? What aspects of your workflow or process have led to trouble or confusion?

These insights are an excellent way to fix any poor customer service outcomes, manage customer experiences, and increase retention of your best accounts.

How Can CountingWorks PRO Improve Customer Service?

CountingWorks PRO is designed to make your tax and accounting processes more efficient and automatic. We know that delivering five-star experiences is your goal, and we’ve built an all-in-one platform that helps you do just that.

Reinvent the way that you communicate and work alongside your customers and clients. Start with a high-performing website, build powerful cross-channel marketing initiatives, and give your clients the tools they need for effective communication at all times.

These pieces work together to create digital customer experiences that contribute to your firm’s success and growth.

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If you have any additional questions, don't hesitate to contact us to speak with an expert.