My two young daughters kept reminding me how badly they wanted a small aquarium you can make entirely out of Legos. Finally, I couldn't resist them any longer and figured it would be a fun project to work on together.
So, I went online to buy the Lego aquarium. My first stop, of course, was Amazon. Not so great. Amazon said it would take several days for delivery, and I would have to pay above retail price. I searched a few other options, including ordering from Lego directly, but they weren't much better. But Walmart kept showing up in my search results. When I looked into Walmart, they said they could deliver the Lego aquarium pieces within 24 hours. Great!
You don't usually think of Walmart as the standard setter for exceptional customer experience, but I decided to give them a shot. A few seconds after placing my order, I received an email confirming that I would receive it at precisely 11:24 am the next day and that "Victor" would be delivering my package. Pretty impressive so far.
There are two elements of my Walmart experience that accounting firms can learn from:
1. Humanizing the delivery experience. It's hard to develop a relationship with a big company like Walmart, but "Victor" was a real, live person whom I could relate to. For CPA firms, any time you can remind clients which member of your team will be helping them — by name — that humanizes the client experience, that's a win for you.
2. Setting and exceeding expectations. I don't know precisely how Walmart's logistics operation works, but they promised me next-day delivery by precisely 11:24 a.m. I was a bit skeptical, but Victor showed up at my door with the package at exactly 11:23 a.m. Walmart set very high expectations but delivered on what they said they would do. Needless to say, I felt well taken care of.
So often, clients send essential documents to their accounting firm, and what happens? They don't even receive a confirmation of receipt. One of your staff can easily be trained to give the client a confirmation of receipt and a reasonable timeframe for expecting an answer or solution. Just give yourself plenty of cushion before providing an ETA to clients. In most cases, they won't care how long it takes as long as you give them a reasonable time frame.
No one likes to be left in the dark whether waiting for an important gift to arrive or awaiting an answer to a tax matter. When you set reasonable expectations for clients, they won't keep pinging you for status updates or constantly asking, "How's it going?" when they mean: "Did you get my request; can you handle this issue; what's taking so long?"
I know we sometimes get hit with too many work demands all at once and we can't meet our promised delivery date for clients. When that happens, be proactive. Don't wait until after the deadline has passed to get back to the client. Tell clients in advance: "I know the ETA on this was X, but it will take longer than expected. We're continuing to work on it, and we should have it for you by Y."
Clients appreciate the communication. It's only a problem if you're dealing with IRS deadlines. Most of the time, you won't have such an urgent issue. They want to know what the status is. As long as you reach out before the deadline and reset expectations, you should be able to extend the time frame. Again, nobody likes being ignored.
As an accounting firm, you have many opportunities throughout the day to build trust with your clients. Every client email or phone call is an opportunity for a mini presentation. They may not realize everything you do for them behind the scenes. The only way they'll know is if you tell them what you're going to do (and by when) and then remind them what you did upon completion.
Walmart could have simply told me my package would be delivered "in the morning" or "before noon" on the promised day. That would have been fine. But they went the extra mile by giving me a precise delivery time and the specific driver's name who would be making the delivery. That made me feel appreciated and well taken care of as a customer. Your clients deserve the same.
Friday follow-ups
Our staff knows that every Friday, we must get back to every client who has an outstanding action item pending. Even if we can't solve their issue or finish the assignment before the end of the week, we let them know we are working on their issue and give them an estimated date for completion or resolution. We've found clients are a little more relaxed on Fridays and they're more amenable to a quick chat at the end of the week.
Every client request is an opportunity for your firm to build trust and excel. As Walmart founder Sam Walton liked to say, "Exceed your customer's expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want — and a little more."
Replace the word "customer" with "client," and I think you'll get the picture. Walton also said, "The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Walmart sign, 'Satisfaction Guaranteed.'"
How does your firm set (and meet) client expectations? I'd
