SURVEY: Clients Find Most Accountants’ Websites Useless
Or, so says Teaspiller, which wants to be the Yelp! of tax and accounting firms. The company says it surveyed 158 clients, showed them a few accountants’ websites and asked what they liked and didn’t like.
Self-serving or not, the survey makes for some provocative thinking. For one thing: throw away those online calculators. They’re so… “90′s.”
According to Teaspiller:
What works on an accountant website?
- Certifications / Licenses. Much like those beautiful plaques in your office, clients wanted to get the same reassurance of an office visit or phone call — but on your site. Make it clear how long you’ve been practicing with credentials.
- User reviews. Clients wanted to save some time from checking references. User reviews is just that – a digital version of a referral.
What doesn’t work on an accountant site?
- Online calculators. Clients were coming to a practice for a premium service – not to play with tax calculators on a website.
- Monthly online newsletters. While there might be evidence that newsletters retain clients, having newsletters on a website didn’t really sway a client’s choice.
- Online tax & accounting guides. Similar to calculators, clients didn’t really want to read through pages of accounting tips.
Bottom line: No one shops without checking the web anymore. Do you know if your website is working for you… or against you?
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9 Responses to SURVEY: Clients Find Most Accountants’ Websites Useless (Subscribe)
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http://www.accountantsworld.com
My biggest problem with this “research” – it assumes that the only point of a website is to attract new visitors. A good site should be equally helpful for new visitors, prospects, and existing clients. Calculators and informative newsletters may not mean very much when you’re visiting an accountant’s site for the first time, but once you become a client, those services add a heck of a lot more value than his/her certifications.
http://www.northstarcpa.com
I completely agree with Div. In my practice, it’s my clients that want the newsletter and calculators. Also, new clients get a quick guided tour of the parts of the website that may be of interest to them in the coming year.
http://www.teaspiller.com
Hi June!
I saw that you’re using a CPAsitesolutions’ site – which is about $800 / year ?
If you think the calculators and the newsletters are worth the investment, that’s certainly your choice. But if you think it would be helpful to get hard data, we can help you do a free survey with your current clients and see what they like / don’t like about your website?
Also, as a reference, here’s a recent survey an accountant asked us to do with his CPAsitesolutions’ website: http://goo.gl/9CcnO .
David, the CPA in the survey, really found the client comments helpful on what was wrong with his website – and helped him realize he had some biases about his website. He’s even working with CPAsitesolutions to address some of the problems.
http://www.teaspiller.com
Just got off the phone with Rick Telberg. We laughed about how Rick’s always trying to bait me with his provocative posts ;)
But this is a really important topic that needs to be debated.
To be honest, we were surprised with the results too — and even re-did the survey at least 5 different times now.
Also one minor point on Rick’s comment: Teaspiller doesn’t compete with accountant websites — we actually promote accountant websites.
Here’s an example where there’s a “View Site” link directly to the accountant’s website: http://goo.gl/J9Xk7 .
So hope that helps to show where Teaspiller is coming from? Our interests are aligned with the accountants — we need accountants to have the best website possible.
http://www.teaspiller.com
Hi Div!
You have the power to do something about this for accountants. So really glad you saw the data =)
1. You’re the VP Marketing for Accountantsworld, who sells these “tax calculators” and “newsletters” as part of your website solution to accountants. So I understand you’re defensiveness to the survey results.
2. On your comment about “Calculators and informative newsletters … add a heck more value than his/her certifications.” I don’t even think the CPA industry is going to agree with you on this point. A license is what differentiates a CPA from other professionals. But I’m sure you have data? Post it and let’s have a good debate.
3. Focusing on the wrong stuff. But why are we even debating the bottom results of what client’s wanted? Let’s talk about what clients really want – resumes, clear contact information, picture of an accountant, etc. Some of the accountant websites out there are horrible—and something needs to be done about it.
So let’s focus on the right content on accountant websites and help them get more clients. A lot of accounting firms are struggling out there (http://goo.gl/VJpXV) trying to figure-out how to get and retain clients.
Accountantsworld is part of the solution.
http://www.accountantsworld.com
1. Amit, I’m not sure why you assume I would be defensive about using calculators or newsletters on websites. AccountantsWorld’s website builder makes newsletters, calculators and other tools optional – if you don’t want them on your site, you don’t use them. (And we’re certainly not alone on this – Emochila and others offer the same flexibility.)
What we do know is that the vast majority of our accountants DO choose to incorporate these tools on their sites. And more importantly, we see that those tools get high usage numbers from clients! I don’t believe they’re an important value-add because I’m biased; I believe it because the stats from our actual customers’ sites tells me they are.
2. I never said that certifications aren’t important for prospects to see; I simply said that user tools are more important for EXISTING clients. It seems reasonable that an existing client would place more value on accessing useful tools than seeing a copy of my accounting degree for the 31st time. Maybe that’s just me.
3. I found your link to David’s survey results interesting. You show that 69% of the respondents favored Teaspiller’s version over David’s existing version. Two comments:
- It sounds like you interviewed his current clients (since that’s what you proposed to do for June above). Then why ask people who already hired David’s firm the question “Which site would make you more likely to hire him?” Why not ask those people which would make you more likely to STAY with him? Or ask NEW prospects which would make you more likely to hire him?
- Each of the 16 respondent comments you show about Teaspiller is glowingly positive, and each of the 10 comments about the existing site is at least somewhat negative. Surely, if a third of respondents preferred the existing site, there must have been some more balanced comments?
In summary, I agree with one of your initial points: that accountants should look to incorporate more of a personal touch on their sites, as well as user reviews of testimonials. But I think your statements that calculators, newsletters, tax guides and the like are outdated and not useful to clients is simply misguided and frankly a bit dangerous.
The survey is completely biased and is really just a marketing pitch from Teaspiller. I don’t think any of their statements are of any value.
Newsletters and calculators work to attract visitors and maintain clients. I have no idea who the 158 “clients” are that were surveyed and I don’t think anyone else does besides Teaspiller. Talk about a complete lack of credibility.
http://www.teaspiller.com
DISCLOSURE: The poster’s handle was a mysterious “Rick” first. I called Rick Telberg to ask if it was him, and he said it wasn’t.
The post now says “springfieldrick”. Definitely appreciate if the poster keeps that in mind the next time he posts.
Usually, I wouldn’t respond to a post like this. But you attacked the Teaspiller team’s reputation.
Teaspiller tries to maintain the strictest statistical standards in our survey – as I said in an earlier reply, we’ve done the survey multiple times with potential clients because we know accountant marketing is a serious problem in a time when firms are struggling to get and retain clients.
We disclosed the number of respondents — because that’s what a good survey does. Almost all accountant surveys in the industry never do that. Some people might think our respondent pool is too small. You’re welcome to interpret the results the way you like.
Poster: Volunteer your identity and your firm’s website. I’d be more than happy to have someone from our team do a survey with your current clients about your website – maybe the results will be different?
http://eacfo.com
One of the things I like about Trendlines is that Rick posts information we can use, even when he isn’t 100% sure he agrees with it. He shares his point of view on the info, but lets us process it so we can accept/reject. While I agree with him 96.4% :-) of the time, I know I’ll get the chance to see the other stuff, too. Regardless, it keeps us thinking, stimulates dialogue and keep us challenging the status quo–not something the accounting profession is particularly well know for doing. :-)