Increasing your accountancy offering to clients – How to make it work

If your accounting firm has a good client list it may be time to think about offering enhanced services to those clients.

This can be an excellent way of boosting your reputation in the industry as well as increasing the revenue of your firm.

The problem is that many SMEs are facing a difficult time right now and may be reluctant to take on the financial commitment of securing additional accounting assistance. Showing the value that you can add to their business helps to overcome this challenge. There are steps that you can take in order to do this.

Understand obstacles for your clients

There are some services that the majority of businesses expect accounting firms to provide such as up-to-date accounting and audit advice and help with tax concerns such as Making Tax Digital. In addition to these services, each client will have their own particular pain points. Identifying these specific obstacles means that you can then align proposed additional services with them.

You have the opportunity to determine which issues the services can help and how this will be achieved. Having this information allows you to develop a plan for how to introduce the services as a value option to clients.

Communicate with clients about their challenges

As successful accounting professionals, your firm will have communications practices in place that allow you to consistently interact with clients. This will usually include contact by email, phone and face-to-face or virtual meetings. You can use your regular contact meetings with clients to discuss their pain points as a prelude to introducing new services to them.

Alternatively, you have the option to approach businesses outside of your regular communications to speak about the specific issues they have with a view to understanding their needs as a valued client. Doing this helps the client to see that you are considering them specifically which means they are more likely to be open to your suggestions.

Provide solutions to identified challenges

Once you have discussed their challenges with your clients, you have opened up the opportunity to show how you can help address these challenges with additional services. To optimise the potential of this opportunity, it’s vital to describe the services in a way that details exactly how they will resolve issues for the client.

Doing this enables the client to understand the value of each service and makes them more likely to embrace the additional help as something positive. Be prepared to provide real-world examples of the results your new services can provide and answer any questions in full and with complete clarity.

Taking this step-by-step approach to increase your offering to clients makes you more likely to be successful. Your approach will be viewed as helpful interest and the client will feel valued and respected. They will see the value of what you are offering far more clearly than they would if you simply went for the hard sell.

If you are an accountancy professional looking for your next role, register with us. If you are on looking to hire an accountancy professional, get in touch.