Deep Dive: Tech that will make your clients think your magic

Amy and Ajack are BACK baby! Together, they're on a quest to sprinkle a little magic on your client experiences, turning the mundane into the magnificent and transforming every client interaction into a spellbinding journey.

Imagine a place where first encounters aren't just meetings, but enchanting experiences. They share secrets on weaving the magic of your brand into user-friendly websites that captivate from the first click. With a flick of their wands, they reveal tech tools that simplify booking appointments to the effortless charm of abracadabra. From mesmerising onboarding processes to the elegance of seamless sign-offs, their chat is a spell book of success, turning NPS scores into powerful charms for ongoing enchantment.

For their grand finale, they delve into numerous tech tools of the trade to empower you to anticipate client needs and deliver solutions that leave them utterly bewitched. 

So let's embark on this journey with me, where exceeding client expectations isn't just a goal—it's where the true magic unfolds. So, capes on, wands ready, and let's create some accounting wizardry together!

AAAAA IS PROUDLY BROUGHT TO YOU BY OUR SPONSORS
XBert | Futurise the way you work with the AI quality control suite integrated with smart workflow management tools that's creating self-proclaimed rockstars.
Content Snare | Organised content and document collection without the back and forth. Stop getting lost in emails, messy hacked-together systems and confusing shared docs. Content Snare is like a checklist for your clients with automatic reminders.
ATO SmartDocs | ATO documents processed in seconds. Built to future-proof your ATO document processing by securely connecting to the ATO servers and loading your documents ready to be securely delivered to your clients.

FOLLOW US
www.accountingadventures.com.au
Accounting Adventures (@accadvpodcast) | Instagram
Accounting Adventures | Facebook
Accounting Adventures | LinkedIn
Aly & Andrews All Aussie Accounting Adventures (@accadvpodcast) | X
podcast@accountingadventures.com.au

CHECK US OUT
ALL IN Advisory | Your squad of award-winning accountants, tax wizards & biz visionaries, perfectly tailored to elevate your biz. Let's soar together!
Illumin8 | Purpose-led cloud-driven accounting humans
Clarity Street | Bringing clarity, time & ease to your practice. Your accounting systems, people and processes working together. Simply. Seamlessly.
Mayday | Revolutionise your finance teams multi-entity month end through real-time accounting

MUSIC
ENTENTE (@ententemusic) | Instagram
PRODUCTION
David Easton (@davidjeasty) | Insta...

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey Amy, hey Jack, how are you?

Speaker 2: 0:03

I'm pretty good, thanks how are you?

Speaker 1: 0:06

You know what I want to say. Good, but we had a great we actually had a great event the other night and that's thanks to you. It was great to catch up with mum and pa as well, but we got talking and we have been talking a lot recently as a kind of core group of podcasters around this future of accounting and making the accounting profession cool and the number of people out there who are saying I'm not your average accountant on their website, but then when you kind of get into it, it's like what are you doing?

Speaker 1: 0:39

that's not your average accountant. Yeah, and I think that's just like, I don't know, starting to grind my gears a little bit. Yeah, because there is so much potential for an amazing experience to be had with you, like you know, for your client to feel the magic, for lack of a better term yep and so, yeah, if you don't mind me hijacking this and taking this whole episode, I want to run with that yeah, I think that's a great idea.

Speaker 2: 1:03

I I hear you on that one. There are a lot of. There's so much opportunity to delight your clients that is just being left on the table. And you know, some of these things that we're going to talk about today can be really trivial and you may already be doing them and they may be an absolute no-brainer. It's like, yeah, obviously of course we do that, but then you know there could be other things whereby it's you you hadn't thought of that and you're like, oh my gosh, I should totally be doing that. That will actually delight. So I think today's topic to actually unpack is, you know what are some of the things apps as well as process procedures, whatever it is that will make your clients think that you're magical and I think it plays so well into the tech side of the conversation, because tech is one of those things that you do have those magical moments with like I know yeah we had an ai episode last season and we started to talk about chat, gpt and that first time you used it yeah, so magical like it's

Speaker 1: 2:15

like the, the world explodes in your head and you're like this can be, this is going to be crazy, like what I'm going to be able to do with this, like the applications, but so yeah. So I think it fits really nicely into tech, because there's a lot of techie experiences that are a bit like that so what do we consider to be a magical experience like what, what?

Speaker 2: 2:33

let's unpack that a little bit, just just for a bit of context yeah, well, I think the word suggests.

Speaker 1: 2:38

it's kind of like unexpected, like magic is a surprise. It's kind of you know, you go to a magic show and you're watching and you're seeing these things and you're like, oh my God, I can't believe that. That just happened. Like I get it. We're talking about an accounting firm and we're talking about accounting tech. But I think that there are moments I've seen it. You know, your clients sometimes are like wow, that was slick. Like I've never worked with any of my professional services and had that moment or that experience. Like they're getting me to fax through documents or something still, and so that one click proposal through ignition or whatever it is like to get that up and running and going so quickly. Like how good, how powerful, and that's just one example. Like how good, how powerful, and that's just one example. Like, so I think it's that unbelievable, like the closer you can get to wow, like that wow moment.

Speaker 2: 3:31

But also just ease. I think that's the other thing that can be. It doesn't have to be a wow moment every single time. It could just be gosh, that was easy, which means that it is. There's an element of magic in it because it wasn't challenging, it wasn't something that was overcomplicated, it was just easy. So like it might be easy to sign documents I mean, I feel like most accounting practices these days are across having electronic signatures, for example but it's just easy. It's easy to finalize a piece of work with your client.

Speaker 1: 4:03

It's easy to finalize a piece of work with your client, yeah, and then you go. You probably can take that to that third degree of so. There's the wow moment the like eyes blow up, kind of like that was exceptional. There's the seamless element, which is like that was slick, and then there's the you got ahead of me on that, Amazing.

Speaker 2: 4:25

Like you could read my mind.

Speaker 1: 4:26

kind of magic how did you know? I needed that. Yes, so you know some of that stuff you might be doing in your firm behind the scenes to stay on top of what's going on with your clients, running your experts or looking at your your data feed, checking the bank recs, looking into the transactions and saying, hang on a minute, they're not doing something right here, let me give give them a buzz, something's not good and they're going to be like you are reading my mind. I am not sleeping well at night.

Speaker 3: 4:48

My cash is low right now.

Speaker 1: 4:50

So yeah, I think they all play into this conversation.

Speaker 2: 4:59

One of the like, when we were sort of planning out what we're going to say, that that should be pretty damn self-explanatory. However, the reason why we're talking about this is is that, again, there are so many opportunities that are just left on the table in terms of what client experience actually is and what you do with clients, so maybe it isn't, as you know, self-evident, maybe it isn't, as you know, like it's not as glaringly obvious what some of these things are and why you should actually be doing them, like what the benefits are. So, from my experience, the benefits are twofold not only to actually make your clients love you and to exceed their expectations, but also because, as a human, like as a business, you want to grow your own business.

Speaker 2: 5:48

you want to deliver a good service so that you continue to have a business, because if you have delighted clients, then they will talk to their friends and hopefully you'll get more clients and the commercial outcome of that is yeah, you make money like. I know that that shouldn't be, that shouldn't be the sole purpose of why you're doing this, but equally, if you want to break it down, there should be an element of that. You have to consider that.

Speaker 1: 6:11

Yeah, oh, absolutely, I mean, I agree. I think everyone can understand it. From a sales perspective, it's like I'm meeting a new client.

Speaker 1: 6:18

This has to be, you know, the classic director of first impressions kind of you know we need this amazing experience when they walk in the door like here's your favorite drink handed to you and yes, let's take you through to this awesome office. That looks really cool and okay. So I think everyone kind of gets it from a sales perspective. But so that's number one, like, yeah, we need to wow the client, we need to show them what we can do, get them across the line and start working with them. Yep, the problem is often then it's like hard to justify or calculate the ROI on investing in an above average experience after that Because it's like I've already got the client, they're already paying me.

Speaker 2: 6:58

Yeah, that's such a lazy thought process, exactly.

Speaker 1: 7:01

Oh no, it is. And the problem is it's like it's hard to understand what the value or return on is, but it's, it's about retaining those clients, yeah, and, and sometimes, sometimes it is just a matter of like look, you have to invest in these moments because they can either lead two ways. One can be like, wow, amazing, I love every moment that I have with this firm. They go above and beyond. It's crazy and I'm gonna I'm gonna actively go out and put a review online. I'm gonna mention it to friends I'm going to. When I'm at the pub and someone says they're having a hard time with their account, I'm gonna recommend mine, put my neck on the line because these guys are amazing. But then also there's just the by having great experiences, you're not having the opposite.

Speaker 1: 7:45

Shitty frustrating ones that can lead someone to leave.

Speaker 2: 7:49

So, it's.

Speaker 1: 7:50

It's both about retaining clients and then leveling clients up to be your referral network, I suppose. So there's massive return on doing this.

Speaker 2: 8:00

But also something that's even a little bit more baseline than that is just so it's you actually enjoy doing your job. If you have, if you create good experiences for your clients, it's that whole energetic what goes around comes around. If you create good experiences, then you'll receive good experiences. That means that doing your job is a joy to do. Therefore, in theory, what they say is you know, find a job that you love, whatever that is, you won't work a day in your life that kind of thought process. So you'll actually it's. You know you wake up in the morning, you actually enjoy what you do because you have a client base. It's actually a joy to work with because you've created those really good experiences.

Speaker 2: 8:36

Not to mention going back to what you're sort of saying about the ROI. It's also the lifetime value of a client. It is so much easier to just incrementally delight a current client than it is to win a new client. Whilst it might be easy to win the client, there's a lot of time and effort that goes into onboarding them, learning what they need, learning what they like, learning what their files like, learning what work you need to do. There's a lot of time and effort that goes into that, whereas if you actually understand their situation like you've spent the time to understand their situation, and then you continue to, you know, give moments of delight, then you will actually get that you'll.

Speaker 1: 9:15

You'll reap the rewards and benefits of it yeah, and so I guess the final question that I'd be curious to discuss before we get into this is what I mean? I mean we're starting to nail it, but before we get into the actual moments that we think people should go out there and have a look at or consider, is, what are the the elements in the customer life cycle or the client life cycle where you can wow them? Because because it is, I mean, I'm happy. Obviously, the sales process is one you can wow a client to get them on board. You can show them some magic, you can make it seamless, you can take the effort from their side away and just make working with you the easiest thing in the world once they're past that mark.

Speaker 1: 10:02

You've got the ongoing service offering, so you've got whatever you've been paid to do, just doing it well and making it a fun, awesome time. You've obviously got the ability there to go and be more proactive as well. Yes, so going above your expected service offering. So the service offering you've signed up to do, but doing it amazingly. And now there's what else can I do? Maybe it's a, maybe it is another service that we usually offer, but I'm just going to dip my toe in the water bit of a lost leader kind of situation and say, hey, let me be really proactive here. And um, you know I've jumped into your file, I've had a look, you're dealing with this. Let's have a chat Like I can wow you, I can read your mind. And then I mean, do you think there's an element of wowing on the sadly other end of the client experience?

Speaker 2: 10:53

At the end of the client experience? Yeah, definitely there is. I think you know you're only ever as good as your last day is a saying right, and the same goes for if you have a client that has decided to leave you. If you give a good off-boarding experience, then people actually still remember that. So they would much prefer to remember a good off-boarding experience than the crap that they had to deal with. As to the reason why they left and you know there are varying reasons why people leave you but a lot of the reasons is because you've potentially not gone through the other elements of delighting your clients, and that's the reason why they're leaving. But if you do leave them like if you do have clients that leave, I think there's definite benefit in obviously delighting them. So I think we're going to. Let's unpack a few of these.

Speaker 1: 11:40

But not before we hear from our sponsors. Wow, that was amazing that little sponsor intro I love it. Um, but this part now I suppose we should get into the tech. We've set up this conversation hopefully, well, hopefully everybody's on board.

Speaker 1: 11:58

So now, in terms of actual reality, how do we create these moments? What are these moments that we've seen, Some of the favorites that we've seen? You know we're quite familiar with the tech that's out there. There's great tech, there's great tools, there's great apps. There's always more. No one can be on top of everything, but there's absolutely experiences that are highlights from my end and I know from yours. So if we break this down into the sales and onboarding process, then we'll worry about the ongoing services. We can move forward to more of that proactive advisory element and then the end of client journey.

Speaker 1: 12:33

So, from a sales and onboarding part. I think your first moment of magic is your website.

Speaker 2: 12:39

Yep, yep.

Speaker 1: 12:41

You know it's marketing, but it is tech. It is a you know you. You jump on the web, you're on your computer to have a look at a website and you can. You can be as tech savvy or as simple as you like on a website. It can be interactive and things can be moving around and animated. It can be just really slick and seamless, but I think it plays into that first moment of magic. Can you read their mind? If they are having sleepless nights, concerned about cash flow and that's your ideal client is that the headline you've got on your website? Are you hitting them? Are you, are you talking to the people that you want to bring on board as clients?

Speaker 2: 13:17

yep it, and it's little things like have you written on your website? We're not your average accountant, but your website is very average. Sorry to be brutal about it, but I agree with you. Little buttons like is it easy for someone to actually make contact with you? Do you have a little pop-up that says how can we help? Do you have that connected to you know some sort of notification system whereby people can actually ask questions and potentially get real, timely advice? Like as in, like a pop-up that says can we help in somebody's area that can actually answer those questions? Just a heads up you aren't going to get too many people who actually use that. There aren't, like it doesn't happen all the time. We've got one on our website and we don't get that many people who actually contact us through it. Equally, saying that, though, we do, and we do have, you know, an SLA in place to make sure that we're obviously available and that we can answer questions and things like that.

Speaker 2: 14:11

But it's it's also like is it clear and concise? Is the messaging actually does it align with who you are as a person and who what your business is, or are you doing it because you think that that's what you should be doing Is the content on the website there. Because you're trying to be different as opposed to just being yourself and actually articulating and explaining what value you would bring to them. Because ultimately, people make contact with a new accountant or a new service provider because they're seeking to have a connection with someone who understands their needs and their situation. Not everybody who hits your website is actually going to be the right client. That's okay. You don't want everyone, but you do want to be able to resonate with the right people and the right clients that you're trying to attract. So make it clear and concise. Make it easy for them to get in touch with you. Make it easy for them to contact you. Make it resonate. That's how I would say it.

Speaker 1: 15:05

And I think in terms of tools, tech that can be involved in here connecting with you, a lot of people are using Calendly of people are using Calendly.

Speaker 2: 15:15

A lot of people are using or equivalents, you know everyone's. There's different options. Now, yeah, hubspot, the free version of HubSpot, with the calendar link that you can embed.

Speaker 1: 15:20

Same thing does the same thing, basically yeah, exactly so, just making their life easy if they want to book a conversation with you. I appreciate you know it's not signing up with an accounting firm. Isn't the same as signing up with a, with an app, where? It's all done online. You never talk to a person person. You want to meet these people, so make it easy to get into your calendar and make sure that you're you know.

Speaker 1: 15:38

I think you don't want to add too much friction to that process for it to be magic Correct, but asking the right question to make sure that you know you can come in prepared to that call. You can come in prepared to that conversation and wow them in that moment and you've done a little bit of research, maybe behind the scenes, on who they are before you speak to them. And then, yeah, obviously, once you've got that conversation happening, where do we go from there?

Speaker 2: 16:00

I think you know having a good, strong sales process as well as in what the next steps are. So if they book a meeting with you online and it could just be an initial conversation, it could just be an initial 15 minute catch up right, and you might offer that for free. But then what are the next steps? Make it a logical, sequenced event so that clients actually know what to expect. Set the expectations from the word go. If you don't have clear expectations and it's going to be challenging obviously for the client to understand and you're going to end up with a crappy experience for both of you realistically. So make it clear and concise so that could be as simple as, as you said, having a good form that's been filled out in terms of data gathering and information gathering. But then the next step would be well, after you've had that 15 minute conversation, do we take the next step, where it's like a? It's a deep dive, like it's you know, come in and meet with me for an hour or and that's actually understand what the, what the system, what the you know your situation is. So data gathering throughout that process as well. Making it actually an easy onboarding experience, like let's pretend that we've now won the client and they've said, yep, send me a proposal or send me. You know I'm, you know this sounds good. I've had a good conversation with you. I'm feeling comfortable with what service you're offering me.

Speaker 2: 17:04

Make it easy for them to actually be onboarded. So the best one we were talking earlier just is don't ask for their same basic contact information five times throughout the process. Like, have it clear and slick so that if you've got their phone number, you've got their phone number. You know you can look at different apps that are to help with the onboarding experience. Things like Seamless, things like Content Snare. They make it a really easy experience for clients to actually be onboarded so that you can give a good experience. I remember you know just a brief one was when I was going for a mortgage, my mortgage broker, the onboarding experience with him. It was just clean and seamless because he had this beautiful little form. I filled out all the relevant information. It connected to all like. It allowed me to upload documents and allow me to upload the relevant information that he needed. It was just easy. It's the same thing here.

Speaker 3: 17:56

Make it easy. I want you to picture this You're knee deep in paperwork, drowning in a sea of ATO documents that seem to multiply overnight. Sound familiar? Because it was for me. Well, fear not, because ATO Smart Docs is here to save the day, and it certainly saved the day at all.

Speaker 3: 18:19

In With ATO Smart Docs, processing ATO documents is an absolute breeze. No more time spent downloading, renaming, filing the ATO Docs. It connects to the ATO overnight, automatically downloading all of those documents and organising them for you. So they're ready to go. And the best part, it is secure. With two-factor authentication and encrypted documents, your sensitive information stays safe and sound.

Speaker 3: 18:47

So say goodbye to the days of sharing those ATO docs over insecure email. Please stop doing it everybody. But wait, like a good set of steak knives, there is more. With a fixed fee for unlimited use, you can kiss bill shock goodbye and, trust me, your team will thank you. Ato smart doc saves time, eliminates stress, keeps everyone happier and more productive, and it's not just good news for you. Your clients will love it too. With ATO Smart Docs Email Vault, they can access all their ATO documents in one convenient spot with just one tap on their smartphone, so you guys don't have to keep delivering it to them time and time and time again. So why wait? Experience the freedom of ATO Smart Docs today, make contact with them, say hello to a world where ATO documents are no longer a headache but a breeze.

Speaker 4: 19:47

If I told you, Ali, that I was a massive fan of incorrect information.

Speaker 3: 19:54

You're a liar. That is exactly the response.

Speaker 4: 19:56

It frustrates me, end to end when things are done and you find just really silly little mistakes. That just shouldn't happen.

Speaker 3: 20:03

It just shouldn't happen. It craps me to tears, I have to tell you.

Speaker 4: 20:06

Well, there's bloody good news for you, ali. There is a tool out there that helps to solve all of those problems, and it is known as Xbert. That is X-B-E-R-T. It is an AI tool built for accountants and for bookkeepers.

Speaker 3: 20:19

And I also know, andrew, it scans all of your client files multiple times per day. It can even fix for 76 common bookkeeping accounting and tax errors 76? I know.

Speaker 4: 20:32

I only thought there was like three or four errors. I don't think we make that many mistakes in a day, but clearly we do Not at Illuminate. No Well, I mean, it's like having another member of your team, really, isn't it? If it's looking for those things. It's kind of dealing with a whole bunch of the time that you'd spend on the crappy stuff and allowing you to have more time to spend on better quality accounting, advisory and management work when you're dealing with your clients right, 100%.

Speaker 3: 20:53

It can also manage prevention of fraud. Like that's a biggie.

Speaker 4: 20:58

Oh, that is huge.

Speaker 3: 20:59

Yeah, it gives you the real big picture on every client file before you've even started the work, right?

Speaker 4: 21:06

And I've heard of some very savvy accountants that are using it to help price their fixed fee arrangements, because they're effectively scanning their file checking data quality so they can scope it before they price it, so they're not finding themselves in a shit ton of trouble because they've got the wrong data.

Speaker 3: 21:21

Oh, for sure, for sure. So sign up for a free trial of Expert today and let their AI do the heavy lifting on all your client files hell.

Speaker 4: 21:44

you know a massive. I'm a massive, massive fan of creating great experiences for people, whether that's my team, whether that's my clients or whether that is the accounting community, and one thing that historically has been really, really bad experiences for people is when you're asking for stuff from them. You know, is it a phone call? Is it an email? Have you sent them a letter? Did you get text messages? Do they want it sent via? That whole experience is often inconsistent, confusing and, for a lot of clients, can actually be quite scary and unknown, and that's why I'm a huge fan of seeing the work that Content Snare out there is doing in streamlining the process of gathering information and giving clients a bloody good experience, whilst it happens right, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 22:22

I'm so sick and tired of chasing clients to get the right info. This is where Content Snare just makes it dead simple to collect it. You can use it for onboarding, interview, tax, any type of form that you send out to clients, and there's a lot, isn't there?

Speaker 4: 22:40

Anything that you need an answer from?

Speaker 3: 22:42

Yeah, and there's so much of that in our practices, so, seriously, get onto this one. With all client files in one place, your team can actually work on accounting instead of spending all of their time in email looking for documents. Get on it.

Speaker 4: 22:56

Bloody for documents. Get on it. Bloody love that. Get amongst it friends. Content snare is where it is at.

Speaker 1: 23:11

It's interesting because in the back of my mind, I'm like oh yeah, you could use Zapier to connect this app to that app and make sure that this form data flows into that CRM, which flows into here, so the client never has to ask twice. But if you're not there yet with your tech stack, like, this stuff takes time, I get it, not everyone's there, but your client doesn't have to know that.

Speaker 1: 23:28

You can pick up the stuff behind the scenes and as much as we're a tech podcast and we you know there's so much tech that can happen here, so much automation potential. At least as a starting point, as an MVP minimum viable product, you can collate information on a form that's super simple for the client and behind the scenes fix that up, get that where you need to put it, so you're not asking them again in a week.

Speaker 2: 23:49

We used to do that, like when we first started, before we mature, matured. From a clarity perspective, the same steps in the process happen from the day that we started to now. When we first started, though they were very disconnected, they were manual, they were manual steps, but I still followed the steps and I manually did them. Now they're all automated and it's just that maturity piece that you go through.

Speaker 1: 24:09

And so the client was wowed on day one, even though behind the scenes yeah, no, I love that, I love that, I love that. So I mean a couple of other bits and pieces before we move on. Is, you know, I think, seamless and content snare you mentioned, yep, we've spoken about your calendar, integrations, those kinds of things in your website. Obviously, if you've got a proposal, software that you're using that is a slick, usually a slick process you add your loom video, you make it personal, yep, um, so you know different tools putting them together, making, um, you know, and if you need to manually fix things up behind the scenes for a little while, that's okay.

Speaker 2: 24:38

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:38

But it's about wowing the client and they don't have to know that's what the magic is. They don't know that behind the scenes things are a little janky still while you're fixing it up. They don't know that.

Speaker 2: 24:47

They think you're magic and that's what this is all about, I think. Accepting a proposal. Obviously, like you know, we'll call out ignition here for them. This one, it's just easy. It's just easy. There are definitely others out there, um, that you know, that you can use as well. But you know, just make it easy for your clients to accept, to clearly and concisely understand what service offering you're providing, hopefully, what you're going to be charging them.

Speaker 2: 25:09

Just make it easy for them absolutely what's the next thing in the process like let's, we've won the client, now what happens next?

Speaker 1: 25:15

well, I mean we've, we've on, we've, we've won them, we've onboarded them as well. We kind of called that out. So now we're actually delivering the work. So we've got to make sure that we're ahead of them. Number one I think not not being reactive, and they're having to chase us up and say oh hey, I haven't heard from you for six months. Where's's that return?

Speaker 2: 25:33

Or where's that baz.

Speaker 1: 25:34

We need to be on the front foot there. So you know clarity up front, yes, with the proposal, but also you know ensuring that whatever systems we're using, whatever workflow systems, they're set up so that the work is entering the journey at the right time, the client is contacted in the right moments, we're not requesting too much information, we're not requesting not enough, and then we're coming back later. So putting the process together and the tech in combination, I think, is massive. Communication is huge here so how are you communicating?

Speaker 1: 26:05

What are you communicating? Obviously, when? Yeah, absolutely so. I think those two elements just throw out working with a client and making that really easy, being proactive, getting ahead of it. I don't think we're talking anything crazy in terms of tools here, but once again, because we're talking still about gathering information from clients, you've got the same tools seamless content. You've got email, obviously, but just making it easy again, it doesn't have to be hard Signing options again.

Speaker 2: 26:35

You know it doesn't sound um signing options as well. Like you know, there are a multitude of signing options uh, fuse sign, anicha, uh, you, obviously you've got your trip more traditional ones, which would be um doci sign and adobe sign, if you, if you're still using those. But you know you've got sweet files, sweet sign in in, embedded in that as well. And then you've got other ones like um, you know, you've got sweet files, sweet sign in in, embedded in that as well. And then you've got other ones like um, you know, through my prosperity that's another option from they have an inbuilt signing solution there as well. But you know, the signing solutions for those documents that can be signed, which is, I would say, about 98 percent of documents these days, can be electronically signed. Just make it easy for the client, just just just make it easy. Have it and, where possible, from the opposite side, internally, make it integrated so that you know you can auto save things as well. But, um, on that, actually, another one is one place, a consideration to uh, to wow your clients is a single place for your clients to access documents. So do you have a client portal, for example, whereby they can upload documents and you can download documents and they can access documents as well.

Speaker 2: 27:39

I sit on the fence a little bit when it comes to client portals. I'll be honest with you in terms of you know whether they're relevant, whether they're valid, those kinds of things. There is definitely a call out for them, though, and they do serve a purpose for the right firms and for the right client base. I think that they definitely are relevant. My Prosperity is one of them where it's just makes it easy for you and your clients to not only communicate with each other. You can, you know the client can upload documents, they can store documents, they can receive documents, they can have documents signed, they can communicate with you, as I said in terms of like through the app. They can request additional information on services that you, you know, that you might offer, which you may not have had the opportunity to communicate, but they've looked at it and gone. Hey, you do that. Wow, I need some advice around that great, I'll. You know, I'll ping them a message, something like that.

Speaker 1: 28:27

It's a great option and I think with portals, the problem has historically been that they have been a bit crappy, yes, so that the firm has. The firms have wanted them to work because it would make their life easier if clients would just access their documents on a portal. But that's not what we're talking about. When we're talking about delighting our clients, it's like we need to make it so it works for them.

Speaker 2: 28:49

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:49

So if they don't want to go on to this you know SharePoint site that isn't working or they can barely access their documents for some reason, that's not going to be that wow, magic, delightful experience that they're after. So if we're going to go down the portal route, make sure that it works for them and make sure the communication's there that you're clear and you know, maybe maybe you've got a client who doesn't want to like interact with the portal. Figure out how you, how you want to approach that yeah, you know like you don't want to.

Speaker 1: 29:16

You know. So I appreciate you know. You, you have a process and a way of working within your firm and either you're going to ask clients to work with that or you're going to be flexible and different firms have different viewpoints on those things and that's totally fine. More, some more bespoke, some are more process driven. That's up to you to decide. But I think, yeah, I think it's interesting conversation. Separate, much separate, much bigger conversation.

Speaker 2: 29:34

Yeah, but it is. I think that it's just in a broader sense to that, not just portal related. You do, as a firm, need to find a fine line between don't just choose something because it makes your life easy, but equally you need to find a balance of clients. We need you to do this because it will make both of our lives easier, hypothetically. And yes, there is a balancing act that you need to find in relation to getting the right mix and blend of that one. But yeah, again, checklists and review points within app, like, even if you're using zero work papers, they've got review options through that.

Speaker 2: 30:10

The client portal checklist type situation. There, again, content snare Carbon has great checklists. I know FYI is building something in that space as well, and I've probably left off so many different other options that have checklists and bits and pieces that just help it. You know, to help your clients, make it easy to provide you with the information as well, because ultimately you need the information. But make it easy to provide you with the information as well, because ultimately you need the information, but make it easy for them to provide that information to you.

Speaker 1: 30:35

And I think, with respect to ongoing service offering and the interactions with clients, it will depend on what service offering you have. If you have just a once a year tax kind of situation, obviously the interactions, the communication, the opportunities for magic are going to be less. But the magic will just be getting it done, getting it done on time, your client not having to worry about it. In a way, that is the experience thereafter. It's just I don't want to hear from you until it's done and it's done right, like you know, as little interaction as possible, whereas others you're going to be on an ongoing bookkeeping outsource CFO arrangement where you're constantly in contact.

Speaker 1: 31:13

And in those cases the wow moments might be like, hey, we've actually leveraged a combination of tools to do your accounting better. You know we might be using yes, we're using dex, we've got your corporate cards on wheel or air wallets or whatever they are patron. Then we've got you know mayday in there for you intercompany. Then we've got uh, fathom there for your reporting and we're just pulling it all together and making you know we're delivering you your reports at the end of the month within two days, like magic, like I'm used to not knowing where my numbers are at. Yeah, so, depending on your, what your relationship is with the client, what the service actually is, but maybe I'm touching on it there with respect to getting the work done, whatever it is. So what's the? Yeah, I don't know what's the final well before.

Speaker 2: 31:52

just a final one, sorry on that. Make it easy for your clients to pay. You Click to pay now on an invoice Options around that one as well. Underrated.

Speaker 2: 32:00

Sorry so underrated, but I just wanted to call that one out. Just make it easy for your client, like, remove that barrier to entry around how a client will pay you. Just remove it. Stop bitching about fees associated with payment gateways and things like that. Make it easy for your clients to pay you, because that's the end goal here. But the next step would be, after we've sort of continued, would be you know, like, let's look at the advisory side of things, like how easy is it for you know clients to? Basically, you know, are you being proactive in relation to when you have a meeting with a client, not even just advisory? Are you actually telling clients why you're catching up with them? Are you sending them a little snapshot of it? This is what I wanted to cover off.

Speaker 1: 32:38

Yeah, I think that proactive element of saying, look, I've, I've wound you with the service that you're expecting, that you signed up for. Now I want to wow you by going above that. So I'm going to actually go in and say, look, I'm going to, before we meet, before we catch up, I'm going to send you this check-in on brief or whatever, and I'm going to get some information from you so that I can prepare, so that I can come to that conversation with answers or, you know, to deliver more value. Yeah, I'm going to wow you again by you know when.

Speaker 1: 33:08

When I see that you're struggling over here inside you know, I can see you struggling to get your accounts reconciled every month I'm going to recommend to you some solutions that are going to make your life easier. I'm going out of my you know scope here to do this and maybe I'm putting my neck on the line because I don't have to. But that's how you delight, that's how you wow, that's how your clients think you're magic. You're think that, yes, sure, if they, if they've engaged you for advisory and proactive services, great, then you're wowing them as part of the service offering. But if they're not engaged for that, you can.

Speaker 2: 33:37

You can leverage those skills yeah, definitely, yeah, expert ada brief like um oh, they're great examples like expert and ada.

Speaker 1: 33:46

They're they're looking at the data and highlighting for you. They're doing the groundwork. They're saying hey, by the way, accountant like check this out this doesn't look good. They're not registered for gst over here. It's like, okay, cool, I'm getting those flags, I can go back to my client proactively and save them the headache. Call those issues out before they run into trouble yep and that.

Speaker 2: 34:05

How amazing do you look as the accountant to contact a client and go hey. So I just noticed, like it's a quick five second. You know, know, whether you smash out a quick email, it's more of a hey. You know, there's a circumstance I've just found in your file. Do you reckon we could jump on a five-minute call? Like that's the stuff that is magical, that goes above and beyond.

Speaker 1: 34:24

Absolutely, absolutely. And I know we're nearly done. We're probably coming to the end of this. Yes, but we spoke about it briefly before. There is still the end of client experience, end of the journey. A client comes to you one day and says, hey, I've decided I'm going somewhere else. Yep, we can be pissed off about it. Yes, we can be angry. We could not give them anything. We can make their life hard, or we can delight them again. We can wow them again. We can show More magic. How great are we? Yep, sure, here, look at this. Fill this form in. We'll give you all the details you need. We've got this great. You've got access to your portal that we said before. You've got access to your documents. It's easy for you.

Speaker 2: 34:59

Yep, make it.

Speaker 1: 35:00

Yeah, you're in charge of your life. You're in charge of your business.

Speaker 2: 35:16

If you want to go down the path of doing an NPS score, there's tech to obviously so like to assist with NPS. You could even just go down the basic send them a Microsoft form or a Google form or a Jot form or something like that to find out some feedback. Can you provide us some feedback on our service? You can't evolve and be a better service provider unless you understand what the problems were and don't always see it from oh, but it was just the client's fault. No, this is how they behaved. Why did they behave like that? Like you need to actually have a little bit of, you know, self-presence, like look internally as well. And how did we behave? How did we actually serve as a client? What did we do? What could have we done better? There's two sides to every story, for obvious reasons. But you know understand why your client's actually leaving, because if you make it easy for them to leave and you wish them well, if they were a half decent client, then you can. It's going to be so much easier to win them back.

Speaker 1: 36:07

But if you wanted to and if you're if you're rightly so a bit annoyed because you're like. I have a great service. We did so much for them. We went above and beyond. You know, we were working late nights to get that stuff when we didn't have to and we did it and they're still leaving us. Yep, the reality is that person doesn't know. They think grass is greener somewhere else and it probably isn't.

Speaker 2: 36:27

Correct.

Speaker 1: 36:28

You've got to just be patient there. You've got to just be patient there. You've got to say they're going to go and if they can swallow their pride on the other end, they're going to go to this other accountant. They're going to realize the grass isn't greener, their experience isn't magic, it sucks. And they come back.

Speaker 2: 36:42

And then you can charge them all.

Speaker 1: 36:43

But if you've left on a really sour note that boomerang isn't going to happen, yeah, what is that saying?

Speaker 2: 36:49

Like, if you have a good experience you tell two people, if you have a bad experience you tell 20? I don't know what the stats are and what the numbers are and whether that's made up, but I think I talk about shitty experiences way more than I do good experiences unfortunately so, but then again, equally, if I've had a good experience, I will tell so many people like, because you know, and that's what it's all about these days is just provide a magical experience that's it.

Speaker 1: 37:12

That's what this episode's all about, and hopefully there's been some good value in there for you. Uh, I guess you know we've called out a few apps, we've called out a few bits of tech that you can put in place. Uh, the reality is you can create magic in tech and non-tech related ways. Yep, and if you don't have all your systems speaking to create that seamless seamless experience, you can make it happen a little bit, hack it together yourself behind the scenes.

Speaker 2: 37:36

So I mean, is there any key takeaway from your end, amy, before we wrap up, Don't always put yourself first, like, don't do things just because it's gonna make your life easier. Do things because it's going to truly delight your clients as well as make your life easier, because, as I said, what goes around comes around. Providing magical experiences will, in turn, come back to provide magical experiences for you internally. It'll make it a delightful place for you to do business for both you and your client love it.

Speaker 1: 38:07

Thanks, jack cool. Thanks, amy Cool.

Speaker 3: 38:14

Thanks, Amy. Bye, hey team. It's Ellie and Andrew from All Aussie Accounting Adventures here. I hope you really enjoyed this episode with Amy and Jack. What did you think, Andrew?

Speaker 4: 38:29

Oh, stunning as always, the two of them are brilliant minds and are brilliant communicators. So we hope that you have got some incredible learnings out of this episode and if you'd like to continue to follow us, make sure you check out our website. Find us on the socials You'll see Accounting Adventures, or look for All Aussie Accounting Adventures, wherever good stuff can be found, whether that's conferences, whether that's websites, whether that's podcasts or social media.

Speaker 3: 38:53

Remember to share it around. My friends Like review. We love that stuff, so come on, join the adventures with us.