How to dramatically increase client referrals from accountants

Back in November of 2011, we looked at how to increase client engagement using relevant and thought provoking questionnaires.

A focus of that edition was the use of lifestyle questionnaires to uncover the dreams and motivational drivers of your clients.

Questionnaires can also be used to create a higher level of referrals from your accountancy referral sources.

The right questionnaire can:

- help a referral source explain and articulate your services
- illuminate just how your services complement their offer
- provide cross referral opportunities
- remove the need for the referral source to have to verbally raise the referral relationship and then explain what is entailed
- provide compelling reasons for clients to want to seek assistance
- provide a motivator for clients to take action
- provide a base measure that can be revisted on an annual basis and in so doing provide a measure of progress for both the client and the initial referral source

An index that offers clients three or more response options on a range of financial and financial structure questions immediately identifies the opportunities for referral or solution construction. By attributing a score to the responses a scale, an index for a clients situation can be recorded and it is the improvement of this score that becomes the driving force for the need for a referral and hence the engagement appointment with your business.

This taps into the motivation of either working towards a higher score or moving away from what a low score depicts as a problematic situation.

The types of areas the questionnaire should cover when dealing with an accountancy based referral source are:

- goal setting
- debt strategies
- budgeting
- asset protection
- estate planning

Then a range of area's suited to the accountants client base and IMPORTANTLY suited to your area of desired expertise ( this SHOULD also align to your ideal client concept - as discussed in previous editions).

Positive Client Engagement has a tried and tested base version of a questionnaire to be made available in 2012. For early inquiries contact PCE.