4 Tips CPAs Can Use to Strengthen Client Relationship

Customer relationship spells the potential of the business prospect in every profession. A healthy customer relationship allows the professional to gain more trust and loyalty of the client, which eventually help in many gains. Dealing with a more private concern than most, CPA requires trust and loyalty extremely. Thus, they have to maintain the customer relationship scores on higher sides.

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With the traditional methods, that personal touch with accounting was prominently seen. As the technology overtook the traditional methods, the connectivity has grown but the personal connection between CPA and client suffered distortion. However, the importance of the customer relationship has only kept growing. Therefore, for a CPA to keep this parameter soaring, adopting the following tips can help:

1. Be Quick and Effective With the Communication

The impression that client makes of your ability largely depends on the way you communicate with them. Different clients have variety with the choice of communication medium, ranging from paper-based mails to smartphone-based IM apps, en route social media, email, etc. As CPA, you ought to be available on all the platforms the client feels comfortable with. And being available is not enough as you should also be responsive, polite, and effective with every inquiry the customer may have.

Avoid being overtly promising with the services and offer the right kind of solutions as per the customer’s requirements. And the understating of requirements comes from listening (or reading, in some cases) the customers.

2. Protect Customer Data and Let Them Know About It

Accounting data is immensely crucial for the client. Most CPAs understand this fact and try to keep it protected. As the current trend is witnessing lesser usage of paper in the accounting, digital storage is taking the center stage. Good news is that digital storage offers better and secure features in the form of automatic backup and password protection. So, it is the high time that you went with digital options to safeguard the customer’s accounting data.

While you choose for safer ways of data protection, do not forget to mention it to the customer. Knowing that their data is protected with you, clients are more likely to trust your offerings.

3. Promise the Deadlines and Achieve Them

Businesses perform better when they rely on facts, figures, and deadlines. CPAs can adopt the same practice to keep the clients happy. Analyze the services that client needs along with your resources to calculate the right timeframe that will be required to execute the given task. Then set a certain deadline and let the customer know about it.

Announcing the deadlines shows your professionalism and seriousness with the services, which will eventually back up your client relationship. Possibly the client will ask to pull the deadlines closer. So, be honest and choose the achievable ones because if you fail to deliver on decided timeframes your reputation will be taking the spoil.

4. Work in the Cloud with Client’s Presence

Collaboration on the cloud is new the method of business productivity and accounting has not shied away from it. Desktop versions of most accounting software can be hosted on the cloud to gain a number of benefits, such as – multiuser collaboration, anytime & anywhere access, etc. Implementing such solution with your services will allow you and your client to work together on the same files. Not only this will save you from the repeated email exchanges, but also fasten the speed of operations.

It helps in the customer relationship because the customer will always be able to access their accounting information and that too from the different location. Thus, the customer will gain more sense of involvement and control of the situations, which adds to their trust in your abilities.