How do you show love to your clients? Many CPAs I talk to have a desire to show more appreciation and service to their clients, but they aren’t sure how, or they’re concerned that they don’t have enough time.
Making your clients feel special is the first step to growing your business. When you take on the role of trusted advisor, you’re likely to gain more work (or higher fee work) from your existing clients and increase personal referrals coming into your practice. And the best part is, it doesn’t have to cost a lot of time or money.
Here are 6 low-cost ways to show love to your clients that will pay dividends!
Send birthday cards: This is a win on multiple levels. People love and deserve to be recognized on their birthday, and also love to get actual mail for a change. You can create custom birthday cards with your firm logo on them and custom messages inside with several online services. Add a personal note and you’re ready to go! Most CPAs aren’t doing this, so it will set you apart from the rest and go a long way in building that lasting client relationship.
Offer to have video calls: This is a great way to connect with clients and a recommendation that I make with firms often. If you’re going to talk with your clients anyway, why not have the interaction be face-to-face? Video conference services are easy to access and less expensive than ever before. Again, this adds value & helps to build a trusting relationship without adding much time or expense to what you’re already doing.
Send personalized video emails: Every CPA I know attempts to put things in an email that would be 10x easier done via phone or explained in person. Of course, that’s not always feasible with scheduling and clients who are geographically diverse. Video emails are a perfect solution. Many of these services allow you to share your screen and record video at the same time, making it easy to walk clients through processes or explain what their next steps are. You can also use these videos to pop into their inbox with a personalized message, perhaps for a birthday, work anniversary or a reminder about your meeting next week.
Meet with “A” Clients in person at least once per year: Note that we said “A” Clients- this technique isn’t meant for all of your $100 tax return clients that you interact with once per year. For your key clients, find time to meet once per year to touch base on their business, any notable changes in their lives, and to share anything new and exciting happening with your firm. This is a great opportunity to get to know your clients and build the relationship, as well as find out information that will help you to better serve them as their trusted advisor.
Offer exclusive trainings to your clients: This year’s new tax law brought up a lot of questions for all of us, including our clients. It was a continues to be a great opportunity to provide value to your clients in the form of a group training. Invite clients to your office to offer an informational session about these new changes or any other topic of interest. You can offer these trainings to all clients or narrow the invite list to those people who are most interested or affected by the topic of the day. Consider bringing in lunch or light appetizers and refreshments if you’d like! This is a great way to generate new business, build relationships, and avoid having the same conversation with clients over and over again- bring them together and you only have to share it once!
Have an annual meeting to discuss goals and special projects: This is another great opportunity for your “A” clients. Outside of the meeting to get caught up, this meeting is intended to discuss their main focus for the year, any special projects they have going on, and of course, for you to find ways to be of further service to them. Don’t limit the scope of special projects to those in your wheelhouse, either. Those can be a great opportunity to introduce them to a subject matter expert that can help with those projects which makes you the resource they can’t live without.
Here are the links to the resources we’ve mentioned above and that I use personally in my business. Feel free to share other resources you’ve used in the comments below!
Resources:
Video Emails:
Bombomb.com
Loom.com
Video Calls:
Zoom.com
Birthday Cards & Custom Stationery
Vistaprint.com
Papersource.com
Simplytoimpress.com
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