When our CEO, Eric Gregg, hosted a panel at the 2022 Association for Accounting Marketing (AAM) Summit, it was so popular, that we decided to host an encore discussion for accounting marketers who couldn’t make it to the Louisville summit.
His panel of experts included Gabe Tevrizian of REDW, Mitch Reno of Rehmann, and Jen Hertzig of KCoe Isom. Together with Eric, this group has 100+ years of experience (and five pets). If you want to know their combined height, you’ll just have to watch the panel. Along with that juicy bit of intel, you’ll also hear their ideas regarding every stage of the client journey, including key points where client experience (CX), user experience (UX), and employee experience (EX) overlap and interrelate. ICYMI, here’s a short recap.
CX Takeaways Throughout the Client Journey
The group first introduced their main focus: Tracking CX throughout the entire client journey.
Before you can optimize CX, you need to identify the key phases of your client lifecycle—the journey they take starting from when they barely know they have a need all the way through deciding to stay loyal to their provider. Mitch called out each phase: awareness, selection, onboarding, service and loyalty. When you can identify a client’s current stage, you’ll gain perspective on what they need at that time and how to deliver it.
Panel Discussion Key Takeaways: The Client Journey
- We tend to think B2B buyers engage with firms once they identify a need. But, according to Gartner, they typically don’t reach out until they’re already 80% through their buying journey.
- B2B buyers research and create shortlists by using online searches, evaluating firm sponsorships, researching on social media, finding satisfaction ratings in online directories and reading firms’ blogs.
- They narrow their list to their top two to three firms using client testimonials, referrals, satisfaction ratings, firm webinars and firm websites.
- When it’s time to make their final decision about which firm to hire, the most important resources still include referrals, but this is also when prospects often begin to invite the firm into their process. They may request more information from the firm, meetings with the firm’s professionals, and conversations with reference accounts provided by the firm.
- As prospective clients move through their buying journey, the most important factors are their perceptions of your firm’s service level and of the risk level involved in hiring your firm. And they don’t want to hear about it from you. Across all demographics, buyers prefer to hear from your current and past clients, with one slight distinction:
- The older a prospect is, the more likely they are to prefer referrals.
- The younger they are, the more likely they are to rely on online reviews.
Where UX and EX Meet CX
By focusing on key touch points throughout their CX, Marketers begin to push further into firm operations. Their efforts can help engage and serve clients during every phase of the client journey. And their UX efforts often mirror and support these efforts. As Gabe noted during the panel, it’s important for clients’ needs to influence UX. Some of your clients’ emotional needs, which they look to your firm for, include:
- Lending relief. Clients want to know the right team is in place to help them feel relief from their worry, stress or shame.
- Extending their team. Clients want you to feel and work like an extension of their own organization.
- Driving growth. Clients want your efforts to unlock their freedom and flexibility to focus on growth.
- Ease of decisions. Clients want a partner who helps them make informed decisions with confidence and speed.
Focusing on CX improvements can also positively impact your EX. When operations are efficient, simple and easy for clients, there tends to be more clarity, consistency and satisfaction on the employee side too. Being better able to provide great service to clients empowers more pleasant interactions and more job satisfaction for your staff.
Watch the Full Panel to Go Deeper
To learn how the evolution of CX – and marketing’s general ownership of it – has altered the relationship and collaboration between sales and marketing, watch the panel. You’ll also learn how Gabe’s firm found weaknesses in their onboarding process and found simple ways to fix them, improving a critical stage of their CX. The insights and stories shared by the panel brought out great questions from those attending, such as:
- How early in the sales process should you communicate about your onboarding process and how transparent should you be about potential challenges?
- How do you navigate engaging larger, younger, more digitally-driven buyer groups?
- How do you balance taking care of new prospects and current clients?
- What are the best ways for marketers to listen to prospects and clients, even for smaller firms? How does this need to listen also apply to their firm’s employees?
- What’s the difference between satisfaction and loyalty?
- What are the keys to inspiring client loyalty?
- Who should ask for referrals and how can they ask in an appropriate way?
Want to hear their answers? Watch the panel now. No time? All good. Just open a new tab or bookmark it to watch later.
