A new year can and should prompt new thinking and a new approach. This post is about a new way of looking at customer care, and the positive impact customer care has on the marketing results your accountancy firm achieves this year.

If you’ve met me, seen me present or connected with me in any way you know it’s not long before I mention my swimming exploits – as modest as they are! Beating Adrian Moorhouse in the Manchester open-water 1-mile swim is my highlight but he was an Olympic gold medal breaststroker who hasn’t swum for 2 decades while I swim 2 or 3 times a week! I’m a swimmer. My kids all swim. My 15 year old daughter is chasing national qualification this year (she’s quite good and makes me look rubbish!).

So how do we get from swimming to marketing your accountancy practice successfully?

Tim Ferris helps. Tim Ferris is seen as the guru of short cuts to success in any field. His three best-selling books are ‘The 4-hour work week’, ‘The 4-hour body’ and ‘The 4-hour chef’.

I’m a massive fan of the 4-hour work week because it points the way to you water-falling work from your desk to other people’s desks. Tim has recently applied his talents to mastering swimming front crawl, something he’d failed to master for more than 20 years – using the same technique I’ve been using.

If you want to see Tim’s top tips about swimming well, go herehttp://fourhourworkweek.com/2008/08/13/total-immersion-how-i-learned-to-swim-effortlessly-in-10-days-and-you-can-too/

In short, because water is 784 thicker than air, swimming successfully is all about managing resistance. How’s this connected to marketing your firm?

Your clients’ willingness or resistance to helping you grow your firm will determine (more than anything else) the success you have at winning new clients and new fees. Let me explain…

Our 2014 marketing audit report for accountancy firms showed that, for 109 firms, referrals from clients is 100% more effective at winning converted new clients than any other form of marketing. Therefore your ability to get referrals is down to your clients’ willingness or resistance to referring you and your firm.
By reducing client resistance to referring and increasing client willingness to refer you, you’ll grow your firm faster and more easily.

Want to know a well-proven way to improve the customer care in your firm? Then go here and if you want the tools to help you implement this approach go here and click the link for the tools on the customer care edition of Business Bitesize.

What will you do in 2015 to improve your firm’s customer care?

What’s your best customer care experience of 2014 that might inspire us all to improve our own customer care?

IMPORTANT: If you want to learn how you can improve your customer care by using the Business Bitesize service exclusively in your region visit www.businessbitesizeforaccountants.com

Paul Shrimpling

Creator of ‘Business Bitesize’ – cultivating a greater flow of new clients for your accountancy firm through profitable word-of-mouth –www.businessbitesizeforaccountants.com

Author of ‘Bamboo Marketing For Accountants’ – the route map to marketing success for accountants in practice –http://www.bamboomarketingforaccountants.com/
To find out about other Business Bitesize editions go here –http://www.businessbitesize.com/remarkable_practice

And if you want to find out how you can share Business Bitesize with your clients, prospects and introducers exclusively in your region please either get in touch with kate@remarkablepractice.com or go to http://businessbitesizeforaccountants.com