With a new financial year on the horizon, it’s time to take stock of your annual performance with your existing client base and focus on securing new clients so your accounting firm can continue its growth. After the peak season haze of tax time settles, you’ll have the space to be able to focus on how your firm can level up, not only with your compliance work but also your customer service.
Feedback and networking are essential cornerstones of retention and gaining new clientele, although both come with their own intricacies. Let’s delve into those intricacies and find out how you can harness your skills to create a safe space for your clients to give feedback and how you can use this to network and gain new clients that are excited to work with you.
Feedback is essential and useful
Many businesses rely on feedback from their clients in order to find out where they’ve exceeded and where they have fallen short of expectations. Although confronting at times, feedback is an essential way to find out how you can improve upon your firm’s services and support. Anonymous surveys sent out via email or social channels work well when you’d like your clients to feel comfortable to really be honest and upfront about their experience. Alternatively, checking in with your clients one on one is a personal method shown to improve rapport and allow you to connect with your existing base and build your professional relationship.
Perhaps a client wanted clear communication within a short timeframe during peak season, which is difficult to provide when you’re working in a high pressure situation and completing the work yourself. You can assess whether or not outsourcing your compliance work with a trusted company would be a good fit for your firm so that you have more time to improve communication and be there to field questions and concerns.
Upskill and Upsell
Now that peak season is coming to a close, it’s time to assess how you and your staff can upskill and upsell. Whether it’s training your employees to improve their customer service skills, business advisory services, or levelling up their compliance skill set - now is the time to upskill so you can upsell.
Upselling is a great way to appeal to your loyal client base while expanding your services and retaining high quality business. If your clients use competitors for things such as business advisory services, financial advice etc. be sure to let them know about your current offerings and how working with you exclusively is a benefit to them and/or their business. This doesn’t have to include new services either. What do you do that sets you apart? Perhaps you can offer them a quicker turnaround, better customer service, accurate and reliable data, or higher levels of cybersecurity. Going above and beyond to ensure your clients are well versed in your offerings will not only retain their loyalty but provide you valuable word-of-mouth referrals.
Networking for new clients
The art of networking has evolved within recent years. What was once done largely at in-person conferences and events can be easily completed online and at virtual events. Just recently, at the Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand Audit and Accounting Conference 2025 the organisers offered an online networking hour at the end of each day so that participants could get together to discuss their findings and make connections. When learning so much throughout the day about the industry, the networking portion proved to be invaluable when swapping ideas and thoughts so that all participants could feel part of the conference.
Networking in person is a tried and true method that works wonders. When attending an in-person event, it’s essential that you are prepared. If you can secure an attendee list and find out who you would most like to connect with beforehand, you’ll be able to make the most out of your time there. Find out what your firm can offer those attendees, what they could offer you, and be sure to follow up afterwards to secure that networking connection.
Referral sphere
Identifying your target base is one of the first steps when securing clients that are both new and are clients that you want to work with. Referrals from trusted sources are key as you will already have a base of which to find your ideal target market. The best kind of referrals come from those you’ve previously worked with before, and not necessarily within the accounting world.
It helps to have a networking sphere that consists of a range of businesses that assist each other in referrals. A property lawyer, a mortgage broker, an investment specialist - all valuable people to have within your sphere where you can exchange referrals. Be proactive with referrals, don’t just wait for them to come around to you. Reach out to people within your networking sphere and ask if they have anyone looking for your services.
