4 Ways Accounting Firms Can Win In The “Age Of The Customer”

Focusing your organization around better client service requires you not only to work faster, but also smarter. You need to be agile to compete, drive transparency into your processes and be able to effortlessly mobilize organizational knowledge and expertise to deliver exceptional quality.

Achieve this and you are well positioned for success. A 2015 study across professional services organizations found that those that scored highest for client satisfaction saw greater revenue growth and higher billable utilization.

But achieving this, and creating more valued and engaging client relationships, requires accounting firms to become more collaborative and fundamentally change the working dynamic between internal teams and their clients. In fact, it’s a change that’s not only being driven by accounting firms, but also by the clients themselves who are beginning to demand greater transparency in the process.

Unfortunately, many of the legacy enterprise tools we all rely on to collaborate on client engagements, socialize knowledge and manage client relationships are no longer fit for purpose in today’s “age of the customer” economy. In fact, many enterprise tools present very real barriers. Processes are riddled with inefficiency, governance is often put at risk and clients become frustrated with delays. A recent Huddle study of accounting professionals found that 55% were limited by their workplace tools when sharing files with their clients, 51% had wasted time working on a document only to discover it had already been succeeded by a newer version, and 39% were routinely delayed on a project while waiting for approvals. None of this speaks to the efficient, client-focused approach that’s required for success. So, improved collaboration between teams and clients is the key to client transformation.

Be more agile

Agility has become as important as ability for any services business. Unfortunately, as organizations grow they often lose the agility that defined their initial success.

From auditing and management consulting projects, to deal and tax advisory, clients are looking to address complex business challenges and for today’s dispersed organizations that means being able to mobilize knowledge and expertise from across multiple service lines or geographical locations quickly and effectively.

Technology has a crucial role to play in helping teams connect and share knowledge and experience. Employees are more connected than ever and a new generation of cloud technologies is making it far simpler for them to create virtual teams that can quickly scale, collaborate on client engagements and present a unified client experience.

Be more engaging

In the age of the customer, clients expect a more social and collaborative working relationship where ideas are shared and projects monitored with greater transparency. Traditionally, extending a shared working environment outside of the corporate firewall has been time-consuming and troublesome, often requiring considerable IT effort.

Client-focused leaders understand that technology must not be the barrier to meeting client expectations. Clients today not only want confidence in the security of their sensitive data, but also in the robustness of your processes and governance standards. In the age of the customer, a one-way push of information is not enough. Your clients must be kept engaged and consulted at every step. 

Try mapping your client journey. How do you engage and collaborate with clients at each stage of the engagement process? Are you reliant on email and the occasional conference call? Is that sufficient enough to build client satisfaction?

Cloud-collaboration technology is making it easier than ever for teams to collaborate in secure, shared environments where they can share content with clients, iterate on project deliverables and share ideas.

Be more mobile

Client-focused leaders understand that we are no longer tethered to physical desks. However, an enterprise mobility strategy doesn’t stop at email. Whether in the office, on the road, or at client sites, today’s teams need to be confident in their ability to work seamlessly, manage approvals and follow team communication as they hop between devices and locations. 39% of industry professionals that have been delayed on a project and missed a deadline while waiting on an approval from a manager who was travelling or working away from the office.

IT organizations face increasing demands to satisfy the mobility needs of employees. As a first step it’s critical to understand employee work patterns and identify use cases where mobility is inherent in the role (for example, an associate conducting audit fieldwork who needs to upload assets), or where workflow benefits can be achieved (for example, where a project deadline is put at risk because an approval chain isn’t able to follow a key stakeholder as they hop between locations and devices)

Achieve this with less risk

However you look to achieve greater employee efficiency and an improved client experience, there’s no room for error. Maintaining governance over your internal processes remains critical not only to the quality of client deliverables, but also your brand. 43% of industry professionals admit to losing a hard copy of a document and 80% admit to using unsecured USB flash drives to share files.

Client-focused leaders understand that security must be balanced with the flexibility to allow teams to function efficiently.  Consider the shadow IT tools that are currently in use across your organization (including consumer-grade file sharing apps and USB flash drives) and how cloud-collaboration can offer a solution that meets both productivity needs and security requirements.

Not investing in cloud technologies that achieve greater levels of collaboration increases your exposure to shadow IT as employees circumvent cumbersome legacy technology to get their work done efficiently.  

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Morten Brøgger is the CEO of Huddle, a provider of cloud collaboration and workflow tools. Brøgger has more than 20 years of experience in the technology industry and extensive go-to market and SaaS experience, spanning the US and European markets.