“Our Tier 3 and Tier 4 Services are by far our most profitable efforts.
However Only 20% of our existing clients use us for those services.”
- Operations Manager (300-person accounting firm)
Does this sound like your firm?
Typically, accounting firms grow at an average of 4% year over year by finding additional clients. Even as they are doing this, they will tell you fueling growth by finding additional clients is hard work and increases marketing and business development costs. They tell us they are continuously trying to figure out how to sell their Tier 3 and 4 services to their existing clients. According to one CEO, “If we were able to add Tier 3 and 4 services to 18% of our existing client base, that alone would get us to both our Revenue and Profitability goals for the year.”
So How Can They Do This?
Client Savvy helped this firm using a proven strategy of activating on their promoters (those who said they would refer your firm to their colleagues). This sounds like a way to attract additional clients. That’s true. Activating on promoters also lets you achieve the goal of selling additional services to existing clients. Here are the critical steps in the process:
- Identify who out of the 20% of your existing clients were happy with the bundle of their Tier 1 – 4 services.
- Capture what their clients were saying about their ability to execute, and how they felt about the overall value to identify their raving fans.
- Use the feedback and data collected from these clients to build a reference portfolio and testimonials.
- Using your feedback and Voice of Client (VoC) program, identify who within the other 80% of your client base is telling your firm it is overdelivering on expectations.
- Developed a communications plan targeted at the clients in the 80% who best fit the criteria of a potential buyer.
- COUNT THE MONEY
Now this doesn’t sound that difficult right? It’s not. However, to do this easily and efficiently, you need the help of some technology. The juice is worth the squeeze!
- A Client Feedback Tool
- A CRM
- An Integration between the two
The firm we worked with integrated their Client Feedback Tool with their CRM to automate the feedback process. They used four feedback templates based on the services they were performing and automated sending. After gathering ongoing feedback at strategic milestones and developing their communications plan, the firm not only hit their revenue and profitability goals, but they exceeded them by 10% in just 8 months!
Let’s Recap
The impact to the firm of intentionally following the process of activating on promoters was:
- Grew their bottom line by 18% in the first 8 Months
- Increased their revenue by 20% in the first 8 Months
- Raised their NPS Score by 10 Points in the first 8 Months
I think you would agree, this is quite the case study! It’s amazing what gathering consistent feedback can do for an organization and the opportunities that will poke their head out. Remember this IS achievable, you may just have to think a little bit differently to make it happen!
Learn more, read Activating a Promoter.
