*BIZACTIONS | PDI GLOBAL CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT*
Woronoff Hyman Levenson Sweet & Alderman, PC
Farmington Hills, MI
Let’s say you have a five-partner accounting firm in the recession-wracked Detroit area. You don’t do audits, and your main competitors are other small local firms, some of which are just too eager to undercut you on price. And even though your firm has been around for nearly 45 years, you’re now also facing competition from firms throughout the country that, thanks to technology, can serve clients in your area. How do you differentiate your CPA firm, so you can get and hold onto good clients?
Steven J. Woronoff, CPA
Shareholder
If you’re the partners at Woronoff Hyman Levenson Sweet & Alderman PC (WHLS), the answer is simple. You focus on providing superior customer service.
“We’re committed to providing close, personal attention to our clients and view every client relationship like a partnership,” says Steven J. Woronoff, CPA, shareholder and de facto marketer. “Other firms say this, too. But for us it’s not something we say, it’s what we do. We place a high priority on being approachable and responsive to clients. So we don’t screen calls. We cover for each other and make sure someone hears from us within 24 hours, even in busy season. And we go out of our way to make clients feel comfortable. This means communicating on their level and always being honest, so they trust us and know we’re on their side.”
People-oriented culture
Always be honest in order to develop trust.
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The firm’s emphasis on good communication and genuine concern for people applies internally, too. “We have a family culture in which everyone is treated with respect and a sense of shared purpose,” Steve says. “While we believe in working hard, we also believe that work should never get in the way of family. So, for example, even when my plate is full, I’ll make it a point to attend my daughter’s school functions. And we allow people the flexibility to work at home or remotely when necessary.
“I take time for myself, too. As an avid Detroit Tigers, Detroit Lions and Michigan State Spartans fan, I’ll go to or watch a game when I can as a way to relax and have some fun. We believe strongly in work-life balance, and are convinced that we all perform better when we take time to recharge.”
This caring, people-centered approach has resulted in a high degree of loyalty by both clients and firm members. “We have very low turnover, and many of our clients have been with us for more than 10 years,” Steve notes. “We’ve built a reputation for being respectable, honest and ‘someone who wants to help me.’ No one says anything bad about us — and that’s a very good thing.” ‘I want to help you’ is the most effective marketing
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Newsletter-focused marketing
WHLS specializes in serving clients in the health care and personal services industry. So its client base includes many doctors, physicians, attorneys and other professionals, as well as construction contractors and other businesses. To stay in touch with them, as well as to keep the firm’s name in front of prospects and referral sources, Steve decided in 2004 to subscribe to a BizActions email newsletter program.
“The newsletter gives us a way of reaching out to our contacts on a regular basis,” Steve says. “It’s a great way of sharing helpful information with them about tax, accounting and business subjects, as well as telling them aboutour firm and what we can do for them. The newsletter shows that we do much more than just tax work.
We’re not writers, and we could never come up with so much good content on our own, especially on a weekly basis. We email the newsletter to a list of 1,000, half of which are clients, and the rest prospects and professional contacts. Every time it goes out, we get calls and emails from people — including former clients — who saw the newsletter and were prompted by it to contact us. At minimum, it reminds people about our firm, and just doing that helps us develop more business.”
One reason for the calls and emails from sending out the newsletter may be the button, “Like Our Newsletter? Share the Knowledge,” that it has in the left sidebar of each issue, along with a banner ad saying that referrals are the best compliment our clients can give us. “We don’t get many referrals from the newsletter itself,” Steve says. “But the sidebar about referrals is a good way to remind clients that we welcome them, and many clients do give us referrals.”
Reminding clients to give you referrals is just smart marketing
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In addition to the newsletter, WHLS relies on networking, involvements and social media to build and maintain client and referral relationships. The partners are involved in a variety of charitable and religious organizations, business groups, and professional associations, such as the AICPA and the Michigan CPA Society. The firm maintains a Facebook page, and the partners have their own LinkedIn accounts.
Technology-driven practice
WHLS uses the latest technology to facilitate work, so it can leverage staff resources and give clients the best possible service. For this purpose, it’s very big on Thomson Reuters’ products.
“In addition to the PPC guides, we use the entire Thomson Reuters professional software suite, which includes its Virtual Office, CS Accounting, Practice CS, Ultra Tax CS, Checkpoint, FileCabinet CS, Fixed Assets CS, ToolBox CS and My Pay Solutions, as well as Web Builder CS, which created our website,” says Steve. “We love them. As I was quoted in a Thomson Reuters’ ad about Ultra Tax, ‘Now I spend less time shuffling data and more time with my clients.’ Thomson Reuters’ products have made our work much easier and better. I can’t imagine doing all that we do as well as we do without them.”
The post *Customer Spotlight* – WHLS Shares Their Marketing Success and How To Differentiate Your CPA Firm appeared first on BizActions | Thomson Reuters.
