Why do businesses fire or stop referring their firms? New data from Bill.com, a leader in financial process automation, sheds light on how firms lose clients, why clients refuse to refer them, and why firms are hired. Jane Willis, VP of Marketing for Bill.com, will preview the results of the 2019 Hire/Fire Index at AICPA ENGAGE. The session, titled “How Not to Get Fired by Clients,” occurs on June 12 at 11:30 a.m. PT.
Willis will be joined by prestigious accounting experts Aaron Berson, managing director of VRTL, Gettry Marcus CPA P.C., Dixie McCurley, co-founder and president of Trusted CFO Solutions, and Christine Triantos, partner at Anton Collins Mitchell.
Together, they will explore the top reasons for client dissatisfaction as it relates to communications, services, performance, and pricing and offer practical advice on how to control the factors that are likely to affect firms’ profitability. They’ll also address critical characteristics SMBs search for when hiring a firm and how to leverage success in advisory services to drive more business.
“No firm wants to lose clients or jeopardize one of the most effective avenues for new business – referrals. The purpose of the Index and the ENGAGE presentation is to help firms identify potential challenges before they result in lost business and transform them into opportunities. For example, more than half of those we spoke with said they would fire a firm if it didn’t work with real-time data and 33 percent said they would stop referring a firm for the same reason. By addressing this one concern, firms can have an immediate edge over competitors. I’m excited to explore this topic with Aaron, Dixie, and Christine to help firms create stronger ties with their clients,” said Willis.
The 2019 Hire/Fire Index from Bill.com asked close to 300 business owners and managers about what would affect their working arrangements with their accounting firms. The full results of the survey will be released this summer.