Whatever happened to client service?

Quality is something of a buzzword in our profession right now. The QAM (Quality Assurance Manual) from the CICA is sure to be one of their best selling products this year.

Many a CA firm have come to me to hire a Quality Assurance Manager, or similar type of person, in the past few months and more and more practitioners I meet are struggling to deal with the issue of compliance and quality assurance matters.

I’m sure that future practice inspections will focus on whether the firm under inspection has followed quality assurance methods, peer reviews etc.

Quality is becoming a big issue in our profession. But quality can also been seen from the client’s side.

What does quality mean to a client?

This is the problem, you see. Clients judge the quality of the job we do for them by an entirely different set of criteria to that which we use.

An accounting firm might ask:

· “Did we complete the project within the time budget?”
· “Did we make any money on this job?”
· “Do the financial statements comply with GAAP?”
· “Did we consider if differential accounting applies?”
· “Did we follow the QAM checklists etc?”

and clients really don’t care about any of these issues, they are internally focussed. They don’t care how many journal entries it took to get the financial statements into shape. They don’t care how many hours it took to complete their project or how many review notes the Partner made when reviewing the file.

Clients ask themselves:

· How long did it take my firm to provide me with the financial statements?
· How well did they explain the results to me?
· Did they come up with any creative ideas to help me build a better business?
· Did they show me how to save on my tax bill?
· Did I get value for money?
· Do I want to go back to them again next year?
· Would I recommend them to my friends?

these are ‘external quality’ issues, that are of primary concern to our clients, but rarely come into focus when we as practitioners consider the quality of the job we have done.

Think about the last time you received great customer service. We all fondly remember that sales assistant in the department store who went out of their way to find something they rarely carried in inventory, but who thought they remembered seeing one on the fourth floor, and instead of simply pointing you to the escalator, they went themselves to investigate, and low and behold, arrived five minutes later with exactly what you were looking for!

We look forward to shopping there again, don’t we?
Compare that to the abrupt, disinterested or downright rude sales assistant who really could care less whether we bought what we are looking for from them or their competitors. It’s the same opportunity, but a totally different outcome.

It’s unlikely that we will return there for a very long time.

Airlines often provide us with classic stories of customer service, both good and bad.

For example, the flight attendant who found a cell phone stuck between two seats on an empty plane who tracked down the owner and handed him his phone (a true story), done because the individual was a star performer who really cared.

Or what about the planeload of passengers who had to sit on the tarmac for five hours while a technical problem was resolved, because returning to the gate to let the passengers off, although a far better thing for the customers, would mean that flight would then NOT be recorded as an on-time departure (on which many a bonus was based). As long as the plane had left the gate it was recorded as an on-time departure (never mind when the plane actually took off).

So how do your clients perceive the level of service and personal attention they get from you?

Here are a few questions to ask yourself to see how well you’re doing as far as client service is concerned:

· Do you have obstacles for clients to negotiate before they get to speak with you?
· Are you putting hurdles (like the overly protective receptionist) in their way?
· Do you give regular feedback and progress reports to clients while their work is being done?
· If there are delays, are these being explained to clients?
· Do you explain what the client’s financial statements really tell us – in plain English?
· Do you talk through the tax liability and everything you have done to minimize it?

Some firms even have systems and procedures that inadvertently act as obstacles to providing good service.

Clients don’t care about the internal issues we have to deal with in order to meet our ‘quality’ standards. Clients want results and they want them fast.

What score would you deserve from your clients, and most importantly, what are you prepared to do to improve upon it?

MFA Group 2006