What Do Clients Want? Ask Clients!

CPAs in industry furnish friendly advice to CPAs in practice: Mind your P-Q-R-S-T-U’s.

by Rick Telberg
At Large

The customer’s always right, right?

Right.

Or so think the customers. And what the customers think counts a lot because they’re your best sales reps, especially when someone asks them to recommend a tax or accounting firm.

How worrisome it is, then, that fully half ? precisely half ? of surveyed chief financial officers, chief executive officers, finance managers, staff and business owners would not recommend their own outside CPA firm to their closest friends, according to our ongoing study.

Yipes! What are these people saying? Statistically, there’s a 50-50 chance they’re directing potential clients to other firms.With that unnerving possibility in mind, we are perusing the clues that these members in business and industry are revealing in our surveys.

So far, 79 percent are saying that “poor client service”, or lack of “attentiveness” would cause them to change CPA firms. Sixty-six percent are saying high prices and fees would also drive them away. Just over a third say “bad personal chemistry” could do it, and just about as many said they’d switch if the firm isn’t proactive enough. Thirty-eight percent say they’ll look elsewhere if they don’t get enough time with the firm’s best people.

Every single respondent has something personal to add.

These comments look important, so we’ve devised a little mnemonic: P-Q-R-S-T-U, and that old favorite, A.

P is a big one: The only word that is coming up more than service is proactive. One unnamed CFO wants “A business partner that is proactive rather than reactive.”

Scott Wright, the financial honcho at Hansen Information Technologies in Rancho Cordova, Calif., tells us, “I want a firm that will keep me informed, on a proactive basis, of the changes in my industry and the accounting industry.”

Another popular P word: price.

Joseph T. LaPaglia, head of the mid-sized Annin & Co. in Roseland, N.J., puts it succinctly: “Good service at a fair price.”

And is Peter Kirk, of Bank of New Canaan, in New Canaan, Conn., asking too much with “We would like fair pricing, good service ? with company knowledge of the industry ?”?

Other P words that come up a lot: personalized service, professional service, professional integrity, practical advice, protection, partnership, peace of mind, and the occasional phone call, please.

Next: Q. As in high quality and quality service and quality proactive solutions, each of which we’re hearing in various phrasings.

R: responsiveness. When the client has a question, the client wants an answer. (See T as in timely, below).

S: service. This could go without saying, but it is sure getting said a lot nevertheless ? by just about everybody. Frederick Mertes, of Maryland-based Newborn Brothers, Inc., repeated it three times; “Service, service, service.” Need we say it again?

T: as in timely and return telephone calls. Today! Not one client has told us so far that they used telephones because they wanted an answer next week.

U: One CFO says, “Clients want auditors to understand their industry and their business,” and several others are saying about the same.

And now, the Big A: As in apple. And accurate audits. And advice. And added value. And available for consultation. And, in the words of the astute and articulate accountant William Griffith, head of Red Bike Group LLC in Laytonsville, Md., “Affordable, attentive service.”

O.K.?

That’s what the clients told us. And that’s what they’re telling their friends.

But it cuts both ways, as members in business and industry, CPA financial managers have a unique perspective into the life and work, trials and tribulations, limitations and pressures, of the CPA in public practice.

If, as a member in industry, you’re not happy enough to recommend your CPA to a close friend or colleague, who will? And will your peer in public practice ever know, if you can’t be honest?

Sure the CPA in public practice ? the one on the “sell-side,” if you will ? is ultimately responsible for client satisfaction. But members on the buy-side also have a responsibility: To their own companies to get the best professional attention possible ? and, maybe just as importantly, to the profession as a whole, to counsel their outside CPA firms toward excellence.

If the customer isn’t asking for it, who will?

Posted at May 21, 2006
Filed Under BSG BUSINESS BUILDER |

Comments

One Response to “What Do Clients Want? Ask Clients!”

  1. Dennis Howlett on May 23rd, 2006 2:03 am

    Rick - once again - you’re reflecting what I see on this side of the pond. There is a word for it in the blogosphere ‘clueless.’ I suspect a part of it comes from the fact that once you reach a certain level of seniority, partners start ot tkae on the idea they’re tenured or entitled. The rot sets in and the long slow slide starts.

Leave a Reply