Trying to grow your firm? Watch this...

So when you're trying to grow your accounting firm, no doubt you're out there, you're trying to win new business, you're are doing marketing, you're trying to educate, you're trying to add value, you're trying to getting those new leads to win your business and grow your accounting firm.

But there is one segment of people that we often neglect.

This segment can be your advocates and your raving fans, and do your marketing for free. And this treasure lies beneath our own eyes and that is our existing clients. We often sometimes neglect our existing clients to go out there and catch new fish for our accounting firm. But actually, if you do the math, then the majority of your new business comes from referrals.

So what are we doing with our existing clients? What kind of service and experience are we giving our existing clients so that they become our raving fans and advocates and do our marketing for free.

You know there's a difference between client service and client experience. Client service is reactive. It's all the things that we do to answer client queries, to handle client relationships, that sort of thing. Client experience, which is more important in this day and age is how we make our clients feel. What perception do they get when doing business with us, with the touch points that they get from us at every stage of the journey with us. What kind of client experience do you have in your firm?

Somethings you can do to increase the client experience are reaching out proactively on an unannounced basis to ask how things are going to have daily check-ins to really get to know our clients about their personal lives, the names of their children, any meaningful dates, birthdays, anniversaries, marriages, children being born, grandchildren being born, sending out handwritten notes. What experiences a client get when they come to your offices? Within the pandemic, that's not been always possible, but what kind of experience do they get? Do you give them a coffee menu? Is there a parking space outside with their name reserved on it? Is it a nice welcoming reception area? Do you give them coffee in a mug that you got from an accountancy roadshow? Or do you have some nice China cups and sauces to present your coffee in. You see all of these little touches add up to the client experience.

There's a famous quote by Maya Angelou who said that "People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." How are you making your clients feel to try and make them your raving fans?