The tactics successful accounting firms implemented in 2020
If your firm is still standing today, the chances are you were, in some way, prepared for 2020—even if you didn’t know it.
Maybe you were already 100% cloud-based. Perhaps your team already worked from home occasionally. Or maybe your clients were already used to working primarily with you online.
At the very least, your ability to be agile and adapt to change enabled you to get your firm through 2020 unscathed.
Having said that, there is no guarantee that you’ve covered all your bases. So, what can you learn from other accounting firms that came out on top after 2020?
Here are 3 tactics successful firms are implementing and how your firm can benefit.
1. Communicate early and often
As someone who works closely with business owners (and perhaps one yourself), you have first-hand experience of the anxieties uncertain and unstable economic conditions can bring.
The key to staying calm is knowledge—understanding exactly what is happening, what the recovery and relief incentives are, and how to access them, for example. And as their advisor, your clients are looking to you to provide them with this knowledge.
But what happens when the details are not yet concrete (which became an all-too-familiar pattern in 2020)?
Jim Buffington, Advisory Services Leader at Intuit Accountants, explains that when dealing with uncertainties, any type of communication is better than no communication at all.
“The firms that communicated as much as they knew often and early had much better experiences with their clients.” — Jim Buffington, Advisory Services Leader, Intuit Accountants
Communicating as often and as clearly as possible with your clients, even with there is no solid and accurate information to share, is often enough to calm them.
And this is one of the major differences between the firms that were able to ultimately provide a better customer experience and those that were not.
2. Ask for help—and actually accept it
Despite a tumultuous year, Nayo Carter-Gray, EA and Founder of 1st Step Accounting
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