What do your moments of truth say about your

What do your Moments of Truth say about your client experience?

@ReceiptBank

Damien Greathead, Vice President of Business Development for North America, Receipt Bank

Damien is responsible for building Receipt Bank’s accounting channel in the United States and Canada. He works with accounting firms of all sizes who want to leverage cloud technology to grow their firm. Prior to Receipt Bank, Damien was a Director at 2020 Group USA, which was acquired by Panalitix in 2016. Damien speaks to state and national accounting associations around the world on topics including change management, marketing and technology.

Accountants are not in the business of grand gestures. Firefighters swoop in and rescue you from a burning building. Accountants, however, should be watching every flammable object in the house to make sure a fire never starts in the first place...

This point is summed up

nicely by Jan Carlzon, former CEO of SAS, in his book Moments of Truth. For Carlzon, Moments of Truth are those 15-second interactions where customers interact with front-line employees. He explains, “These 50 million ‘moments of truth’ are the moments that ultimately determine whether [we] will succeed or fail as a company.”

To bring these terms closer to current accounting vernacular, these Moments of Truth are the building blocks of client experience. They are the moments where you fulfill the promises you made when the client signed up.

It may not be as tangible as your office or your team, but the trust of your clients is one of your practice’s most important assets. The Moments of Truth can make or break individual client relationships. And just as they do for SAS, they will determine whether you succeed or fail as a practice.

The Danger of Front Loading Value

Client experience has become a buzzword in recent years largely due to the proliferation of new technology. These tools make traditional accounting processes much simpler, faster and more valuable. This means that the way you employ them – the experience you offer – is now a powerful sales tool.

Once, most clients would have given their right arm to never have to look at an accounting product. Now businesses like Xero are competing to create client-facing products that customers enjoy using and that provide tangible need to follow. You can’t offer all

value. But while Xero is the basis for managing your clients’ finances, it’s often the add-ons that provide the front-facing value.

For example, in your next meeting with a new client, you could bring out your phone and take a picture of a receipt with the Receipt Bank app. In under 5 seconds, you’ve just shown them the only thing they their expenses. For you that means you’ll never have to enter data again or store paperwork in your office, but for your client it means so much more. It means no more receipts in their car, no more filing and, no more driving bags of receipts to your office. It means a great experience, which could well be enough to seal the deal.

But it also sets a standard that you will ever have to do to keep up with

the value up front, when it matters to close a sale, and not follow through once they are a client.

That’s a quick route to a ruined client relationship and lost business.

A Thread of Excellence

In order to retain and increase value from your clients, you need to able to own these Moments of Truth. This goes for the lifetime of the client, from prospecting interview, to onboarding, to tax season and beyond. So how do you maintain that level of quality?

lack of clarity over how to deal with a situation. Consider how long you wait after a client signs up with your practice to send the next piece of communication. Is it when you have time, when it’s finished, or maybe your SLAs – if your client submits by the end of the following week.

even when the client reminds you?

The easiest way to build consistency is to have clearly documented processes for each stage of your client journey.

Every new client receives an email the day after they sign up, which contains a standard welcome note, FAQ sheet and the login details for any software they’re using All client enquiries are to be responded to within 24 hours, even if not resolved Every client gets a free, quarterly that you’re interested in their business and to explore potential up-sell opportunities

It’s all written down. You’ve defined what counts as a “good job”. All this means you and your team can stop focusing on process problems and start solving business problems.

You can even make this a part of complete expense data using the Receipt Bank app by the end of the month, they get a set of management accounts with them advice meeting, to demonstrate

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Run that thread through every part of your client interactions, and you can make sure that clients feel valued all the way through their journey. Let it break and they’ll wonder why they haven’t changed firms yet.

Magic moments

Client experience doesn’t end at the moment of sale. It’s a constellation of interactions that create a feeling of value.

The cloud, the Xero ecosystem and apps like Receipt Bank give you more tools than ever to add value every day for your clients, in ways that you might not usually think about. But if you want to build and maintain profitable relationships, you need to make this a priority, from the moment you first meet a prospect to the rest of their time with your firm.

It’s the way you manage those Moments of Truth that determine the length of that journey.

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