An advanced customer survey that generates new fees
As part of your overall marketing strategy or as a standalone solution The Holy Grail makes great commercial sense. It is based upon the principle of a ‘Customer Survey’. We have taken an acceptable and expected commercial norm - a genuine customer care call seeking honest feedback - and developed and expanded it in a unique way. This may sound simple – and at the very heart of the process is simple logic - but the process includes a complex amalgam of advanced questioning techniques, NLP and other communication skills to ensure maximum response from every call.
Knowing your customers
Every practice has a customer database (varying in size) and while many believe they are good or excellent at dealing with clients, most have not carried out a customer survey, offered additional services or, where appropriate, asked for referrals.
Discover in this short audio how this new service, exclusive to Insight, can help your firm grow
“How many times have you called one of your clients, checked they are happy, offered a new service to them or asked for a referral?”
This unique Holy Grail process is designed to give your practice:
- Visible and deliberate customer care: proof that one of your core values is being put into practice. In short, by contacting your clients we will help to increase, improve and safeguard CLIENT RETENTION while at the same time gain valuable feedback. This has two significant benefits:
- Understanding why customers use your firm and what they like about it. This will enable all future marketing to be developed on the great things you do.
- No firm has 100% happy clients and in the current market retention is vital. By effectively handling a complaint, we can nip problems in the bud before unhappy clients leave.
- The ability to talk to existing clients about additional services you have available, enabling them to REQUEST further information on these services or to request a meeting to discuss them face-to-face. This is a subtle and powerful difference to the normal ‘sales’ process.
- More new clients: as the process has been designed to deliver testimonials, referrals and appointments with prospects, all you need to do is turn up at the meeting and convert the referral into a client. This plays to most firms’ strengths as they are familiar with these kinds of appointments.
- A list of exactly which clients are interested in buying which additional services: This makes your cross-selling efforts highly effective.
- A COMPREHENSIVE REPORT: At the end of the campaign you will be presented with a report that gives you:
Our team is trained to hold intelligent, professional conversations with your clients’ senior decision makers. Therefore each call is completely unscripted. We never make calls which follow a prescribed format, robotically going from one question to the next. Our approach is always to agree the big picture and ask relevant questions that are appropriate to the conversation. The outline approach is:
Introduction
- Hi, I am a new member of the team and I was asked to call to both introduce myself and see how things are going with our clients.
- How are things with the business at the moment?
Identify Satisfaction Level
- PROACTIVITY: In terms of the work we are doing, do you think that we provide proactive advice/strategies/options for you that genuinely have your best interest at heart and are attractive to you? Follow up questions are as appropriate.
- TIMELINESS: Are you always clear on when you can expect a piece of work completed by or report delivered? Do we meet those deadlines?
- ACCESSIBILITY: When you have a question or need help outside of the compliance work we do together, do you feel you can easily contact one of our partners and receive the help you need?
- VALUE: Do you understand and believe in the value of the advice we provide for you?
- PERCEIVED WEAKNESSES: What could we do better?
- PERCEIVED STRENGTHS: If you were to describe our greatest strengths, what would they be?
Identify Potential Upsell Opportunities
- Mr X [Partner] mentioned to me he would love to pop across and meet with you to chat through [AVN product], when would be a best day/time for that to happen?
- How keen are you to explore new tax strategy options?
- Where do you believe you would gain most additional value from us?
Identify any Referral Opportunities
- Can you think of two or three people/businesses that would make great clients?
- Can I get their details?
- Could I send you our new eBrochure to forward to them?
- Could I get a short testimony from you?
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Who makes the telephone calls?
All our Holy Grail campaigns are run by our top teams of Telephone Specialists (TS). Each TS has undergone intensive training regardless of the amount of past calling experience. Their training is also continued through quarterly seminars, keeping them abreast of new techniques and methods. Thanks to our extensive involvement in sales and marketing training around the world over the last 25 years, many of these techniques have been pioneered and tested by our own teams. This means you can be sure that the TS assigned to your account is a highly trained individual who knows exactly how to represent your firm in the most professional and productive manner, without the use of a script.
Their role is to help you secure new business. They are highly experienced on the telephone and have been handpicked for their skills. On average your TS will achieve 40 -50 telephone calls per day and (if required) will contact you at the start and end of the day to gain feedback and to chat through the results.
In short, we’ll help you generate new business that’s exactly the right ‘fit’ for your firm.
Q: What are the expected results?
The reality is that there are multiple variables when it comes to implementing The Holy Grail for your firm. Each of these variables may well make a positive or negative difference to the results you experience.
These are:
- How happy are your clients with your services?
- Are they comfortable providing a testimonial or referral?
- How frequently have they received marketing material in the past?
- The strength of the offer available and the quality of the services we can discuss with your client
- The number of clients available to call and their size/profile
Q: What happens to our client database?
A common question we are asked is how can you safeguard our customer database? Your client list is one of your most valuable assets, so allowing us to contact your customers is a considerable responsibility and one we take very seriously. We have a safe and proven process for managing all our customer databases. We are also very comfortable signing a NDA if you would find this helpful.
Q: what experience does Insight have?
Insight was founded over 20 years ago by well-known author and philanthropist, David Oliver. David has grown a number of firms which he has either sold or continued to develop. He is one of the most soughtafter sales and marketing presenters and trainers in the UK. David’s vision for Insight is as clear today as it was 20 years ago: To help practices grow, realise the potential of the business owners and the people they are responsible for.
Since Insight’s formation David and his team have been instrumental in training some of the leading sales and marketing teams in the world. Insight’s prestigious clients include Microsoft, HBOS, BBC, B&Q and Mitsubishi.
This management team and their staff are currently serving a range of UK accountancy firms from sole practitioners to top 20 firms. Insight has an excellent reputation for its honest approach to tactical sales and marketing that delivers measurable results for accountants.
Q: What questions do you ask?
Our team is trained to hold intelligent, professional conversations with your clients’ senior decision makers. Therefore each call is completely unscripted. We never make calls which follow a prescribed format, robotically going from one question to the next. Our approach is always to agree the big picture and ask relevant questions so we can understand:
- Is the client happy or unhappy?
- Why?
- What else might they like to receive from you?
- Are they willing to provide a testimonial or referral?
Q: Is there any risk?
Of course, there is always risk in any communication with clients, but we believe our 20-year experience in dealing with accountants’ clients - now condensed into the unique Holy Grail process - minimises that risk to acceptable levels.
Q: What about the Data Protection Act?
We are registered to work with our customers’ data in accordance with the Data Protection Act, so everything is legal and above board. All of your data held on our files will be returned to your firm upon completion of the work we undertake on your behalf. We do not keep a copy of your data files.
Q: Should we communicate to our customers before you call?
In short YES! We advise you to either write by post or email to all your customers explaining who we are and indeed why we are calling. This will enable customers to be more relaxed chatting to us, give them prior warning and therefore enabling them to think through what they may share. It will also add creditability to the process. It does not need to be a lengthy document, we would suggest something like this:
Market Research on our Services
Dear XXX,
We are currently working closely with a specialist marketing company called Insight, and have asked them to call you on our behalf in the next few weeks to collect independent feedback on our services.
We encourage you to be open and honest with the Insight representatives, and to express any comments you might have, whether they are positive or negative. Rest assured we welcome all comments, and will use them to help us review the services we are providing.
Yours faithfully,
Partner
Q: What does it cost?
We normally test The Holy Grail on a small pilot campaign, which is designed to suit your budget, size of clients and growth objectives. A typical test campaign requires a minimum investment of £6,000, which enables our team to professionally call, handle and manage a pilot database of between 150 – 220 customers depending on the number of questions being asked. All your calls will be carried out by one of our senior Telephone Specialists (TS) who will call on your behalf (either using your firm’s name or as a third party). This means you have a highly experienced accountancy TS working on your customer database. This activity includes up to 10 full days of our time making these calls, referral generation and follow up, pre and post-campaign management, plus a full report.
Q: What will it achieve?
Identify new opportunities
Prior to making any calls we hold a detailed briefing to agree what we are promoting and why. Typically we find clients are not aware of what a firm can offer so we have a great opportunity to generate more business from your existing client base.
Generate more referrals
Every partner knows that when it comes to referrals, the No 1 rule is to ask for them! Equally well known is that very few partners are comfortable asking for referrals and consequently don’t! Even those who are more comfortable asking, rarely get around to it, as they are focused on delivering to existing customers. The result is a trickle of referrals rather than the constant flow which an active strategy would produce.
Set appointments with referral opportunities
Once a referral has been achieved we are in an excellent position to approach the contact by phone and professionally explain the context of the call. The result is often either a lengthy conversation with a follow-up call arranged or a meeting booked for a senior partner to attend.
Benchmarking report backlinks
The primary goal of The Holy Grail system is to improve client retention, gain new business through existing customers and generate referral opportunities. In addition, we provide a basic benchmarking report which identifies your perceived strengths and weaknesses in areas of Pro activity / Timeliness / Accessibility / Value. If there is something else you would specifically like to know we may be able to build this into the feedback process.
