Art of Accounting: Client survey

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Client surveys are an effective method to find out what clients are thinking and also give some the opportunity to vent about what displeases them. I suggest sending all of your tax clients such a survey to see how they feel about their interactions with your firm during tax season.

Many people do not want to send surveys because they feel their services are not as good as they would like them to be and do not want to call attention to it by asking clients. Those are the firms that should definitely send the surveys. Giving clients a way to vent and complain is an excellent way to clear the air, explain any misunderstandings or misconceptions, describe your work process and how client cooperation, collaboration and interaction is important, how certain problems the client encountered have been corrected or won’t reoccur, and possibly apologize for them. It is also an opportunity to explain why your fees are not “too high.”

When I first started sending out surveys, some clients gave very high marks for everything except for our fees, for which they gave the worst grades. I called each client to explain our pricing methods, including all the work, care, added oversight and review that went into the services we performed for them, enumerating the benefits and value to them, of which they might not have been aware. I realized early on that many of the great things we did for clients were not communicated to them or were taken for granted by us and the client. The first survey we sent revealed that we needed to make clients fully aware of what we did and the benefits and value while it was fresh in their memory, and to do it without appearing to be bragging or attempting to sell them additional services. It took work, time and effort, but we got much better at it and are improving with this almost daily. However, this issue was called to our attention from the early survey results we received.

The survey also becomes a method to make clients aware of added services you could perform for them that they need or are thinking about obtaining from you or other service providers. The survey can also request clients to let you know what additional services they need that you possibly could help them fulfill. At this time of year, the primary recipients would be tax clients, but this can be sent with every deliverable provided to clients or sent annually to every client.

Some of the issues that can be queried are overall satisfaction, satisfaction with the quality of services, timeliness, adhering to deadlines, responsiveness to their calls and questions, frequency of contact, your availability, whether follow-up was satisfactory, ease of following instructions to file what was sent to them, whether they were asked about additional services they needed, were we proactive in offering suggestions, if they were kept apprised of tax changes that were relevant to their situation, whether their data was handled in an extremely secure manner, the pricing of the services, and whether they would recommend us to colleagues or their friends.

One quick test you can apply to your firm is whether you cringe at any of these questions and would be reluctant to ask them. Those are the questions you should ask and immediately work to improve those deficiencies. Also, keep in mind that clients might value something in a completely different manner than you, and one of the purposes of the survey would be to uncover that. I once lost a client because I did not return her shoebox! (Here is a link to that story.)

You can use a survey in the form of a checklist with specific questions, or, send your clients a letter with an update on how you did during tax season, thanking them for being your clients and friends and their referrals. Also ask if they could explain any unpleasant interactions so you can improve your services going forward. I would treat any negative replies with the utmost seriousness — immediately find out the underlying reasons and then call that client ASAP.

If you want a checklist of the types of questions you could ask, send me an email to GoodiesFromEd@withum.com and just put "Client Survey" as the subject. No messages please.

Do not hesitate to contact me at emendlowitz@withum.com with your practice management questions or about engagements you might not be able to perform.

Edward Mendlowitz, CPA, is partner at WithumSmith+Brown, PC, CPAs. He is on the Accounting Today Top 100 Influential People list. He is the author of 24 books, including “How to Review Tax Returns,” co-written with Andrew D. Mendlowitz, and “Managing Your Tax Season, Third Edition.” He also writes a twice-a-week blog addressing issues that clients have at www.partners-network.com along with the Pay-Less-Tax Man blog for Bottom Line. He is an adjunct professor in the MBA program at Fairleigh Dickinson University teaching end user applications of financial statements. Art of Accounting is a continuing series where he shares autobiographical experiences with tips that he hopes can be adopted by his colleagues. He welcomes practice management questions and can be reached at (732) 743-4582 or emendlowitz@withum.com.