What clients want
When I first set up my practice six months ago, I was very much like Mel Gibson in the film of a very similar name (in fact some people think I look spookily like Mel Gibson – which is a real shame as I’m female with two children!!). I thought I knew what clients wanted - a set of accounts and a tax return. It didn’t take me long to realise that was actually the last thing a client wanted. It’s what they needed and had to pay for but it certainly wasn’t what they wanted!!
This was actually great news for me – I had never been overly fond of compliance work (accountant speak for preparing accounts and tax computations). I’d also found that nowadays software will do a lot of the donkey work (in my day, it was all done by hand with a calculator – yes, I really am that old!!). But that got me to thinking. If clients didn’t put much value on the compliance work, what could I do to justify my fees?
It takes time to build a reputation as an accountant and for people to be able to trust you. Whilst building this reputation I had the luxury to spend quite a lot of time looking around for “added value” tools with which to enhance my practice. Whilst I had tons of practical experience of improving business profit from my time in industry, I felt having a tangible product to support my experience would be very beneficial. I found to my surprise that there’s a myriad of profit improvement software in the market place – I was spoilt for choice! Kid in a candy store springs to mind!
In the last few months people have got to know and trust me and I have been steadily receiving client recommendations and referrals. Imagine my surprise, however, when none of the clients I have taken on have been overly interested in the “profit improvement” software which I have bought!!
Instead, it seems that what clients want from their accountant is much simpler than anything that I could have imagined. They want an accountant they can talk to, someone they can phone about any problem and someone they know will be interested in their business. Alongside that they need the confidence that their accountant has the technical knowledge to give them the best accounting and tax advice possible.
This is music to my ears. Life as an accountant is so much more interesting when you are actually involved in your clients business and they include you in their decision making. In order to encourage my clients to communicate with me, I offer unlimited free phone calls within a fixed fee package. I also offer free bookkeeping software but there is a catch – the client has to send me their electronic books every month. Again, I feel by having this monthly interaction between myself and the client, it encourages active communication.
As anyone who knows me will confirm, I love talking and sharing ideas – and who better to do that with than my clients!!!
However, I’m far from believing I have the answers to everything my clients want, and if anyone can give me some different ideas I’d love to hear from them.