You’ll catch more Bees with honey than vinegar

Love is in the air at many an accounting firm in February. No I’m not referring to any office romances that might have started at the Holiday party, I’m speaking specifically about how we treat and interact with our clients, particularly as we start ramping up to busy season.

February 14th is the big day for displaying our personal affections, but we should be constantly letting our clients know how much we love them from our day-to-day interactions with them.

For example, how often do we send out ‘Thank You’ cards to our clients when they warrant receiving one? For most firms the answer, unfortunately, might be ‘very rarely’.

Yet there are many instances that occur throughout the year that might warrant sending out a ‘Thank You’ (or other type) card to clients, staff, referral sources, suppliers and so on.

Let’s look at a typical case in point. Let’s take a sole practitioner, for this example we will call her Mary.

Mary is a highly competent practitioner and her clients simply love her; she is entirely approachable, easy to talk to and answers every client’s question as if it were the most important question she will deal with that day, no matter how simple or basic the inquiry is.

Clients never feel as is she does not have time for them, and Mary always goes out of her way to make each client feel special.

Yes, Mary has worked very hard at client service, making it a priority, and as a result, she is operating a very successful and rapidly growing practice. As the film says, there’s something about Mary.

If she receives a phone call from a potential new client, who was referred to her from an existing client, she makes sure that she hand-writes a brief ‘Thank You’ note or card to that client.

She will even take the time to hand write the envelope and make sure that she puts a stamp on it, rather than pushing the envelope though the office ‘franking machine’ – just to ensure that the ‘personal touch’ is evident.

When a client pays their invoice for her fees, again, Mary will make sure that the day the cheque arrives that she hand writes and mails a sincere ‘Thank You’ note or card for that client.

When preparing the tax returns of her clients, she makes sure that all dates of birth are captured for her database, and then gives her Executive Assistant the task of a week before every client’s birthday to make sure a birthday card goes out to each of them.

In addition to that, during the holiday season, she will be sure to send out a ‘Season’s Greetings’ card to all her clients, suppliers, staff, referral sources and so on, often with a personal message inside rather than simply signing and mailing it.

If an investment adviser refers one of their clients to her, Mary is sure to send a ‘Thank You’ to them, irrespective of whether she actually decided to take on that person as a client. In addition to that, Mary is always on the look-out for opportunities to reciprocate whenever possible.

As a result of all these genuine acts of gratitude, everyone who makes a referral to Mary is sure to make more.

More to the point, she has got to the stage in life where she can now pick and choose which clients she takes on and which she declines.

The direct impact of that is that she has very few, if any, ‘problem clients’ and her office is a great place for her staff to work. Most of her clients genuinely appreciate what she does for them, rely on her as their ‘business advisor’ (as opposed to just being seen as the year-end person) and they always listen to her advice.

Her staff are therefore in the luxurious position of dealing mostly with clients who are polite, co-operative and welcoming when they go out on audit assignments.

The knock-on effect of this for Mary is that very often her existing staff are out there in the marketplace referring their friends and University buddies to Mary as potential team members whenever the opportunity arises, meaning that her cost to recruit new staff is very low.

In recognition of a staff member’s effort, she will often pay a referral fee of $1,000 or so should any people referred to her by the staff end up being employed by her firm.

Mary is also a master at using the most powerful two-word phrases in human resources; ‘Well done’, ‘Good job’ and ‘Thank you’ with her team members when appropriate.

She even goes the extra mile with her suppliers, ensuring that she thanks them any time they have gone out of their way to help her, or have provided exceptional service to her. As a result, if ever Mary finds herself in a bind, such as running out of letterhead without realising it, she knows she can call on her supplier to pull out all the stops and rush her job to get it to her on time before a crises evolves.

All in all there’s a lot we can learn from her;

· Express your sincere thanks and gratitude to those who help you
· Treat your employees well and they will treat you well
· Act like a great employer and you might well become one
· Encourage referrals from staff and your recruiting coasts could disappear
· Show appreciation to clients and they will make referrals
· Give each client the impression from your service levels that they are your most important client, and you will develop a steady stream of new business

Yes, it really does pay to choose your clients with care, service them well, create a great team spirit at the office and reap the rewards. You definitely do catch more bees with honey than with vinegar!

© MFA Group 2007