Who Keeps Clients . . . And How?

Answer: Service, service, service. Cost ranks second.

by Rick Telberg
At Large

Landing a client is one thing — and not always an easy thing — but keeping a client is another.

A client is a valuable thing. In fact, Bay Street Group Research and Advisory Service estimates that three-quarters of CPAs typically keep a client at least five years. And one in three keeps clients an average of at least 10 years.

Not bad! Considering that half of the finance managers we’ve talked to wouldn’t recommend their CPA firm to their closest friends. The apparent stability of the client-auditor relationship is pretty impressive.

But the contradiction of statistics leaves us wondering whether a lot of clients wouldn’t mind hooking up with a new CPA firm. A lot of them complain about auditors who come in for the audit but never offer much else — no advice on how-to, no warnings of new accounting and taxation rules, no consultations on financial efficiency, no clues on how to run a better business.