Capstone Marketing Blog, Marketing

CPAs: Do You Know Your Competition?

The second in a series of blog posts based upon The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms:
How to Create the Roadmap for Your Firm’s Growth.

In addition to learning more about your firm’s client base it is important to analyze your competition. Week Two of The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms shows you how. Gather competitive intelligence by:

  • Asking your internal team and your clients for information.
  • Conducting an online search.
  • Checking out their websites.
  • Evaluating their social media presence, including individual LinkedIn profiles, LinkedIn company pages, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and YouTube.
  • Evaluating the trade and community organizations they support and the LinkedIn Groups they participate in.
  • Setting up Google Alerts. This is a service that generates search engine results, based on criteria provided by you, and delivers the results to your e-mail account.
  • Uncover information about firms and people at www.zoominfo.com and https://connect.data.com/.

Your competitive analysis will tell you about their marketing activities, organization involvement, services, industry specialties, and experts. This information will help you determine the services and industry niches to pursue and promote. It will inform you about the types of clients your competitors are seeking. It will help you tell your firm’s story and how you are different from your competition.

Want to learn more about The 90-Day Marketing Plan process? Join me for a live webinar on October 2, 2014, 12:00-1:15 p.m. Eastern and chat with me and other participants about your own challenges and opportunities, compare notes, get ideas, find out what works and what doesn’t at other firms.

Capstone Marketing Blog, Client Satisfaction

Direct Dial to CPA Client Satisfaction

As part of an ongoing series of marketing training programs one of my clients hosted three of their clients to participate in a panel discussion regarding “How Clients Choose and Retain CPA Firms.” I facilitated the panel to uncover the clients’ thoughts about:

  • How and why they selected the firm.
  • The most important factors in the selection process.
  • The most important elements of great client service.
  • How CPAs can best gain client confidence.
  • What CPAs do (or don’t do) that detracts from the relationship.

The clients’ responses to these questions and follow up questions from the audience resulted in valuable feedback. Team members were taking notes. Their focus was on the discussion, not on their smart phones.

Then, from my perspective, came the most revealing comment. When asked about areas that the firm can improve on a client responded,

“Can I have the direct dial numbers for my team? I’d love to be able to call them without going through the receptionist.”

Wow. Client service can be that simple.

Needless to say, before the client left that day he had the direct dial numbers of each firm member that is part of his team. And, his feedback opened up a bigger discussion about recognizing the many factors that go into delivering superior client service. CPAs must be willing to adjust to how their clients want to do business and not what is most convenient for them.

My client was rewarded with many positive comments about their firm and reinforced marketing and client service concepts from previous training programs with feedback from their clients’ mouths. How can your firm improve its level of client service and satisfaction? What small changes can you make that will impact your clients’ perceptions of your firm?

Interested in learning more about client service? Check out our published articles and complimentary ebooks:

Client Satisfaction Surveys for CPA Firms: The Answers to Your Most Frequently Asked Questions

Questions to Consider for Your CPA Firm’s Client Satisfaction Survey