Canadian visitors can see our advert in every issue of CA Magazine, from May 2003 issue onwards, in the professional directory section. And don't forget to read Steve McIntyre-Smith's column in every issue of 'The Bottom Line', the leading independent newspaper for the accounting and finance professionals in Canada. We also have occasional articles published on accountingweb.com, so keep an eye out for us there too!

If you believe that the perceived quality of the service you provide - in the eyes of your clients - and the professional growth and satisfaction of yourself, your partners and your staff has anything to do with the future growth and prosperity of your firm, then please read on...

Dear Public Accountant,

Choosing a Public Accounting firm is one of the most difficult decisions business owners face today.

They cannot take home a sample to see if they like our service.

They have no way of judging our skills and abilities prior to engaging us, and often depend heavily on the recommendations of friends in business, bankers and other referral sources when deciding which firm to use.

The choices facing the typical business client can often be overwhelming too.

The competition for a smaller number of prospective clients intensifies each month as more CPAs, CAs, CGAs and ACCAs around the world establish their own firms.

What then, can you do to totally differentiate yourself from the competition and give yourself that essential competitive edge?

Well, there are many good marketing tools which will help you to establish and grow your firm. Many of them we produce ourselves, through our other web sites, such as the internationally acclaimed, award-winning MarketingForAccountants, but the one initiative that will make the biggest difference is by providing an awesome experience to your existing clients.

What is the point in continuously chasing new clients if existing clients are not super-satisfied with the service they receive and, as a result, the new clients brought in to the firm are simply replacing the ones leaving?

It's like trying to keep a bucket full of water when there's a gaping hole near the bottom.

We all believe that we provide our clients with great service, and most of us do. But the simple truth is, that if everyone provided a wonderful service experience to the client, then no clients would ever change firms.

Even those firms who do a wonderful job for their clients sometimes suffer from attrition. Maybe it was the fee offered by a competitor that tempted the client elsewhere. Maybe it was the service promise from the other firm that tempted them away. Or maybe it was simply because they didn't see the VALUE in what you did for them last year.

The skill that separates the thriving practice from the ordinary is this: those firms who implement a system to demonstrate everything that they have done for the client, the savings they have achieved for them and the value they have provided for the fees charged are the ones who will be simply miles ahead of the competition.

These firms will keep clients much longer, provide more services to them and receive way more referrals from their clients.

It's much easier to increase your fees by 10% if you increase the value you offer your clients in return by 30%.

We are often not in a position to see the value proposition from the client's perspective until it's too late. The public accountant already has more than enough on his or her plate.

There are professional standards, filing deadlines, time and staff management issues, fee budgets and many more constraints that tend to distract us from the fact that a client is looking for value for money from us.

They don't care how many journal entries were necessary to make their financial statements comply with GAAP.

They don't care how much research went into crafting the tax strategies you used to complete their tax return.

They don't care unless we tell them, and tell them in such as way as to clearly demonstrate what this means to them in dollars, pounds or euros saved. Only then can they make a judgment call on value.

The tools to do this in a discrete, professional and client-centred manner, and more, are contained in TACS.

In a recent survey of business owners who had recently changed accounting firms, 4 of the top six reason given for making the change were:

By running a client-centred practice, a public accounting firm can retain their existing clients for far longer and provide additional services to them.

By providing an awesome service experience to these clients, they start to become 'cheerleaders' for your firm, always keen to pass referrals on to you. Before long, the client-centred practice sees real growth, both in average fee per client - by virtue of providing additional services to their clients - and by a steady growth in the number of new clients referred to them each year.

That is the main objective of 'Towards Awesome Client Service'.

Time and again, the common thread seen is to place too much emphasis on finding new clients, when the practitioner already sits on a huge resource of untapped work and untapped referrals - from their existing clients. I believe it is mostly due to our natural instincts. We were always hunters rather than farmers.

Sure, we need to attract additional clients to our firm, and we should have a system in place, with the tools to help us become successful, but the area that can make the biggest difference in the shortest time frame, is to provide a truly excellent service experience to our existing clients, make them aware of the additional services we could provide them and the benefits they could enjoy, and to encourage them to make more referrals to us during the course of the year.

When I was in practice, client service was one of the most important issues I learned.

Like most of us, I learned the hard way. I made my share of expensive client service mistakes, but I quickly learned from each of them. Each time I documented what I did wrong and what I should do different next time I face a similar situation. I tested the new approaches and new methods, designed spreadsheets to help me keep track and wrote materials and fine-tuned them to the point where I had a genuine system in place to help me succeed.

Over the years basic, fundamental issues repeatedly came to the fore, and so I collected, fine-tuned and developed each to form the basis of a complete client referral and up-selling system. I have decided to publish them as 'Towards Awesome Client Service' to offer you the opportunity to get a real jump-start on your competitors.

It's intense, it requires commitment and perseverance from you, but it gets results.

If you are looking to truly differentiate your practice from your competitors, I urge you to explore TACS and the benefits it brings to you, your firm and your staff.

Sincerely

Steve McIntyre-Smith, Ph.D, MIDM
President, MFA Group Inc.

PS - Remember to join up today to take advantage of our special price.

If you embrace this challenge and implement the ideas in TACS, in time, your competition may well catch on.... but they will never catch up.

PPS - A quick comment about the use of the word 'awesome'. It has been pointed out to me - by someone in the know - that RAS (Results Accounting Systems -or RAN ONE as they are now known) use this word a great deal in their material and, in fact, it is thought to be something of a worst kept 'secret' code-word for their materials.

I just wanted to clear the air here and clarify that, while I have a deep respect for their work with the accounting profession in the mid 90's, this system is absolutely nothing to do with RAS, RAN ONE or any of their associated or spin-off businesses (such as the talented Ric Payne's 'Principa' or the amazing Paul Dunn's 'ReNew Group').

I have never bought or used any of their materials and TACS is totally original material, created solely by yours truly. But listen, before you join, please feel free to call me, if you have any questions, at 905-257-2284.

Delivered in four modules, one delivered each quarter, Towards Awesome Client Service was launched in October 2002 to huge critical acclaim.

- Sign up now to secure a very special price -

It's a proven,effective, systematic formula for practice growth through Awesome Client Service, developed through years of research and practice, exclusively designed for the needs of the modern accounting practice.

Delivered in four modules complete with 'how-to' step by step instructions and guidance, with your own TACS e-coach and a members-only download centre where all our documentation can be downloaded in Word documents and Excel spreadsheets to help you succeed.

Explore our site, by clicking on the topics of interest to you on the menu bar at the top of this page (might I suggest you next visit the 'About TACS' page?) to learn the numerous advantages of the TACS system, and how you can see a minimum, guaranteed growth in your fee income of $30,000 over the next twelve months.