25 Things Customers Love

The best strategies from the best companies.

By Arnold Sanow
arnoldsanow.com

Arnold Sanow
Sanow

In today’s fast-changing and competitive environment, excellent customer service is not only nice but essential for success.

In fact, the only way to differentiate yourself and to become less of a commodity in the marketplace is through outstanding customer service.

After studying more than 500 companies and organizations – as diverse as Lexus/Toyota, Bristol Meyers Squibb, Lockheed Martin, Homeland Security, Forever Broadcasting, The Medical College of Georgia, Aspen Institute, Marin County Realtors Association, and Choice Hotels – a few strategies emerge again and again.

Here are 25 of the best practices used by some of the world’s best companies to get new customers, keep them, and turn them in enthusiastic fans and referral sources: READ MORE →

Check Yourself: How to Reality-Test Client Satisfaction Levels

Arnold Sanow
Sanow

To keep both your staffers and clients happy, tax and accounting firms need to gain a thorough understanding of their perceptions and perspectives — and to make they align.

Customer service guru Arnold Sanow suggests 15 questions to ask yourself, your staff, and, above all, your customers. serviceThe biggest opportunities will surface when you compare and contrast their responses.

Be prepared for an eye-opening, sometimes gut-wrenching, exercise in hard truth: READ MORE →

Enhancing Client Financial Health through Collaborative Services

Clients benefit when CPAs and investment advisors work together.

By Martin E. Levine, ChFC, CPA, MBA
4Thought Financial Group, Inc.        

Martin Levine 4Thought
Levine

Even if the client isn’t always right, helping clients understand and make the best financial decisions is always the right course of action. 

CPAs understand the implications of financial decisions and strive to advise clients in ways that improve their financial well-being.  However, clients frequently have multiple – sometimes conflicting – financial goals, and use other financial professionals, including financial advisors, attorneys and business consultants, to achieve them.  READ MORE →

Will Obamacare Penalties Kill Your Small Business Clients?

drug in syringe on white background

Fines run $100 per day, per employee.

By Stephen L. Nelson, CPA
and Elizabeth C. Nelson, CPA

Small Business and the Affordable Care Act

By now, many of your small business clients understand they don’t have to provide employees with health insurance. The employer mandate starts when a firm employs 50 or more full-time-equivalent employees.

But here’s an awkward follow-up question: Do your small business clients understand that many of the ACA’s rules still apply to them and that they may still be vulnerable to the ACA’s 4980D excise tax penalty—which runs $100 per day per employee?

LEARN MORE: Small Businesses and the Affordable Care Act: What Every Tax Practitioner Needs to Know (55-page PDF digital download)

Can We Talk IRC Code Sections?

People sometimes hear references to the 4980D penalty and scoff, say you can’t believe everything you hear on talk radio or read at some blog. So let’s look at the actual Internal Revenue Code Section in question.

Here are the first few sentences of IRC Sec 4980D: READ MORE →

It’s Not Sales. It’s Your Duty

Ed Mendlowitz CPA The Practice Doctor Q and AHow to suggest additional services to clients and why you’re doing them a disservice if you don’t.

By Ed Mendlowitz
The CPA Trendlines Practice Doctor

QUESTION: I always feel awkward telling clients they need additional services that I should perform for them. Can you tell something that could “rev” me up for this?

MORE PRACTICE DOCTOR Q&A: Yes, You Should Send Rejection Letters | When to Hire an Admin Assistant | 7 Ways to Lose a Client’s Trust | How Much Should You Pay To Buy, Sell or Merge an Accounting Practice? | Why the Average Fee Doesn’t Matter | No More Printouts at CPE Programs? | 6 Ways to Take a Client Beyond Tax Prep

ANSWER: Actually, by suggesting additional services you are doing the client a favor and a good deed. Also, you are in business and the easiest way to generate additional revenues is to cross-sell services to present clients.

READ MORE →

Savvy CPAs Focus on the Constants

Don’t be distracted by the hot trend of the moment.

In “10 Things That Accountants Didn’t Need to Worry about 10 Years Ago,” CPA Trendlines contributor Hitendra Patil generated reader reactions with some provocative thoughts about a tsunami of trends. Today, he looks at the other side of the coin, starting with a quote from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos:

You should build a business strategy around the things you know are stable in time and then invest heavily in ensuring you are providing those things and improving your delivery of them all the time. If you want to build a successful, sustainable business, don’t ask yourself what could change in the next 10 years that could affect your company. Instead, ask yourself what won’t change, and then put all your energy and effort into those things.”

By Hitendra Patil
Pransform Inc.

What has remained unchanged in the tax and accounting profession over the last few decades? And what will not change over the next couple of decades?

More on The Entrepreneurial CPA by Hitendra Patil here.

Being a futurist is not easy. Being a realistic futurist is even more difficult. But being a person who knows the foundational value of his or her profession is relatively easy, if you know why and what customers buy from you. A CEO of Black & Decker once said the almost proverbial “customers don’t buy a drill machine, they buy a hole in the wall.” As an accountant and tax professional, you must figure out what your customers buy from you and why they buy from you rather than from your competitors.

Now is the time to think about what they will continue to buy in the future. READ MORE →

Quote With Care When Asked for Valuation

Ed Mendlowitz CPA The Practice Doctor Q and A12 issues that might not have been addressed.

By Ed Mendlowitz
The CPA Trendlines Practice Doctor

QUESTION: I was asked to do a quote on a business valuation for a startup that will be raising money on their second stage financing. How do I quote this?

ANSWER: This is a wide-reaching question and it is not possible to know initially what the client really needs. They could need a valuation, a business plan or a method of bringing in the investor.

Here are some of the many issues and variables:
READ MORE →

Closed for Tax Season? Looks That Way

Ed Mendlowitz CPA The Practice Doctor Q and AAutomation can send the wrong message.

By Ed Mendlowitz
The CPA Trendlines Practice Doctor

QUESTION: I have an automatic email response and some clients and contacts criticized me for it. I am overloaded during tax season and this takes some pressure off of me. Here is the automatic email response I am sending out:

THANK YOU for your e-mail. Please accept my apology for this automated response. During tax season, most of my work days are scheduled with appointments and calls. I most always reply to emails and phone calls as soon as I can, usually the same day. Replies are slower during the months of February, March and April. Thank you for your patience.

ANSWER: That’s terrible!

MORE PRACTICE DOCTOR Q&A: 12 Must-Knows for Niche Markets | When Fees Don’t Keep Up With Cost Increases  | Lowballing and Why It (Usually) Doesn’t Work | Why the Average Fee Doesn’t Matter | How to Apply Value Pricing to Bundled Services | 6 Ways to Take a Client Beyond Tax Prep | 10 Do’s and Don’ts for Making Small Business Clients Happy | Client’s Difficult Daughter Balks at Bill | 10 Ways to Get New 1040 Clients | Tax Return Reviewer Ticking and Tying | 23 Reasons Clients Really Need YOU for Taxes | 5 Time Management Tips for an Overworked Accountant | Complaining Client? No Wonder! | Pricing, Billing, Costing: Don’t Blame Clients

You are running a business and tax season is just one part of it although concentrated into a highly intensive, pressure-filled period.

READ MORE →