Think about some of your favorite brands. Have one in mind? I bet you can picture exactly what it’s like to make a purchase from that brand — from the website design, store layout and employee uniforms, all the way down the packaging. That’s because the world’s most popular brands obsess over their customer/client service. They customize every point of their customer experience. And your CPA firm can do it, too.
However, we’re not going to talk about branding today. Instead, I want to talk to you about two different approaches to client service — high touch and high tech — and how you can find the right approach for your firm.
Both approaches have merit, but here’s the key — you can’t have both. I’ve seen too many firms try to offer high-touch personal service and also high-tech. They end up stretching themselves too thin and not delivering on either.
High touch vs. high tech
If you’re emphasizing process and technology, then you want to deploy your resources into building a top-notch portal and online experience for your clients — i.e., the high-tech approach. If you’re focusing instead on people and service (i.e., high touch), then your website shouldn’t be your highest priority. Instead, put your resources into better training for your client service team. You want their calendars full of one-on-one calls and Zoom sessions with clients. You want them initiating conversations with clients, showing them how to use the portal and answering their basic questions.
Once you’ve become comfortable distinguishing between high tech and high touch, you can start using each approach for different aspects of your practice. For instance, your tax prep and financial reporting work is pretty standard. That part of your practice could be high tech since the end goal is to deliver a report. It’s not very consultative. But your advisory work is not standardized. There are many nuances to a merger or acquisition, for instance or a complex retirement timing decision. These parts of your job are much more consultative and require a lot of detailed conversations with clients. This is high-touch time with clients that you should be well compensated for.
Tesla vs. Cadillac
If you think about it, the future of your firm is a lot like the car-buying experience. Do you want to be Tesla (highly automated/tech driven), or do you want to be Cadillac (high touch, people-oriented)? Both companies make great cars and have millions of loyal customers. But buying a Tesla is very different from buying a Cadillac. Each company has put a lot of time, money and resources into perfecting their customer experience, but Tesla certainly isn’t doing much to train their in-person sales staff (there isn’t any). Meanwhile, Cadillac’s website won’t answer many of your questions — they want you to come down to the dealership so they can get to know you. (Disclosure: My wife loves the personal approach, and I drive a Tesla.)
To help you decide which path to take, ask yourself, “What is the end deliverable our clients are looking for?” And then ask yourself, “How do we get to that goal?”
For accounting, tax and bookkeeping work, the end deliverable is an output. This kind of work should be heavy on systems, processes and technology. You’re trying to get clients to a final result without having lots of conversations with them. You want to streamline this work and get it out of the way quickly and efficiently. Doing so frees you up to do the higher-value advisory work that is high touch — work that’s oriented toward heavy client conversations.
Remember, there’s a lot more competition for your best clients these days. Thanks to technology, people don’t just look to accounting firms in their geographic area. With Zoom and portals, clients can meet with their CPA remotely, upload documents to their special place on the firm’s portal and have a quick 20-minute Zoom call with their CPA to have all their questions answered. They don’t have to block out half their day to drive to the CPA’s office, park, wait in the waiting room, have the meeting and then drive home. It can all be done from the convenience of their home or workplace.
Anything that can help busy professionals and business owners save time is a bonus. They just want great advice to make better decisions about their money. Your job is to make that as effective as possible.
It all comes down to resource allocation
As I described in my article
Tesla customers won’t find human representatives to talk to. You won’t find a toll-free number to call. Tesla knows that’s going to irritate some potential customers — and they’re OK with that. “Those kinds of people are not for us,” Tesla seems to be telling the marketplace. Cadillac really wants you to come into the showroom so they can get to know you, build a long-term relationship, wow you with their service and make sure you use them for all future repairs and purchases. Cadillac’s client service team is very well trained.
I’m not saying Tesla is arrogant or takes its customers for granted — far from it. By putting their resources into technology and processes, they’ve forced themselves to become very good at answering customer questions by email, FAQ and chatbot.
Whether you’re a tech company, a car dealership, or a CPA firm, you can’t be weaving in and out of different lanes all the time. That’s extremely dangerous. Instead, decide which lane you want to be in and be a leader in that lane.
