| EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY |  CUSTOMER CASE
RESEARCH (CCR) can reveal how a
company’s people and circumstances
influenced it to engage one CPA and not
another or to obtain one accounting, tax
or consulting service and not another.
Such case studies illustrate situations
business managers must solve all the time,
and CPAs can use the information to make
marketing decisions.
A CPA OR RESEARCHER
SHOULD WRITE an outline to
help clarify the firm’s purpose and
organize questions. Your inquiries can’t
be a boilerplate script because client
stories must be able to go in their own
direction.
THE PROCESS
PROVIDES THE FIRM with data
about how a client perceives its
service, but the interviewer
concentrates on the client’s purchasing
procedures and internal influences
rather than the degree to which the
firm’s work has or hasn’t pleased the
client.
A CPA SHOULD BE
ALERT TO ISSUES clients raise
so he or she can dig for the underlying
dynamics. Case studies of defections,
both to and from a firm (it’s OK to
interview former clients for this
information), may signal when a client
likely will switch.
IT’S A GOOD IDEA
FOR THE CPA/RESEARCHER to
share early findings with other firm
members after the first few CCR
interviews. Staff reactions may spark
questions the firm can use in the rest
of its research, and implementing
changes is easier when staff
participates.
SOME CCR PROJECTS
CAN MEET the firm’s needs in
as few as five interviews; 10 to 25
typically will yield a more substantial
range of information. The implications
of client reports sometimes emerge fully
only after several narratives combine to
reveal a pattern. |
| Denise Nitterhouse is an
associate professor in the School of
Accountancy and Management Information
Systems at DePaul University, Chicago. Her
e-mail address is
dnitterhouse@mba1977.hbs.edu .
Gerald Berstell is a marketing research
and strategy consultant who performs CCR.
He is based in Chicago. His e-mail address
is gberstell@post.harvard.edu
. |
 emember the dating joke that went
“Now let’s talk about you—what do you think of
me?” Customer case research (CCR) asks clients,
one by one, to describe in detail why, when and
how their company decided to ask your firm out
(that is, chose your CPA firm for services). As a
research method, CCR chronologically examines the
client company’s people, circumstances, decisions
and events that led it to engage one CPA and not
another or to obtain one accounting, tax or
consulting service and not another. Such
service-selection case studies illustrate,
sometimes vividly, situations business managers
face and must solve all the time. The perspective
these findings offer can help firms better focus
their practice development strategies. Here’s how
a firm can use CCR.
MULTIPLE REWARDS
The goal of a
CCR interview is to learn about the
client’s purchasing process and internal
influences, not whether your firm’s
service has or hasn’t pleased the client.
In the course of discussing how they made
their decisions, clients often express
business observations CPAs can turn into
other engagements. Information gleaned
from a CCR interview can |
Still the Crux
Practice growth remained
among the top 10 CPA issues,
said 73% of CPAs interviewed.
Source: PCPS/MAP
Top Issues Survey, AICPA,
2002.
| |
Reveal business-cycle factors that
influence a client’s financial-services
purchases. Cycles—short or
long—are part of business. For example, a printing
plant may have an intense yearly production season
for Christmas catalogues and need a better way to
inventory its paper supply. Longer term, companies
in later stages of growth may need more business
advisory services and fewer of the tax and
accounting services start-ups require.
Point out who behind the scenes
influences a decision to engage CPA services.
In one case, disclosure that a
middle manager (not the CFO) was the person who
tipped the scales in a decision to switch CPA
firms showed how decision makers wield hidden
power within some businesses.
Highlight obstacles to some types of
engagements. A CPA firm that
discovered a company’s outside network consultant
had been undermining its recommendation for new
accounting software decided to work with other
clients’ information technology suppliers early in
any proposal process to avoid such a setback. If
your new CPA service or marketing approach hasn’t
taken off, it may be based on faulty assumptions.
Using CCR to talk to clients can help you discover
what’s important.
Point out unexpected openings for new
clients or services. A dark
cloud of local layoffs had a silver lining for a
CPA firm that provided financial and retirement
planning services. The firm helped many unemployed
professionals roll over 401(k) plan assets and
modify financial plans to weather the difficult
transition. That firm now closely follows news of
layoffs and provides free seminars to attract
potential PFP clients. Another firm used CCR to
learn how to pitch a new client service that
analyzed pricing and sales compensation.
Reveal service strengths you were
unaware of. One CPA found that
her firm’s ability and willingness to refer other
local small business providers of complementary
services such as human resources consulting had
played an important role in several clients’
deciding to retain her firm. | Rick Sgarlata,
CPA and president of Frost, Ruttenberg and
Rothblatt PC of Deerfield, Illinois,
suggests using CCR to “look at what
additional services a client would buy
from an accounting firm.” His firm’s audit
proposal to one CFO “led to other
opportunities with the CEO and COO for
consulting on retirement plans, deferred
compensation programs and employee
incentive policies.” Although the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has changed how
and what CPAs can cross-sell to publicly
traded audit clients, it so far has had
little impact on nonaudit and privately
owned clients, sources say.
SET UP AN INTERVIEW
Whether you employ a marketplace
research consultant to talk to clients
or you do it, the interview should take
place at the “point of purchase”—your
client’s office. There a subject will
have access to files or another staff
member to refresh a memory or confirm a
fact. Introduce your appointment
request with a statement such as, “Our
firm wants to learn more about your
needs to help us give you even better
service in the future.” Assure your
subject you will not bill his or her
company for this work. Request a
one-hour appointment for an in-person
interview or half an hour for a
telephone interview at a time convenient
for the client. Make sure people
understand you want to hear their
stories, not tell them yours. When
clients realize you genuinely want to
know more about their business, they
often will spend the time to tell you
what you want to know. Be prepared to
stay put and listen if the client
continues talking. |
| PRACTICAL
TIPS TO REMEMBER
|
To get the most out of
customer interviews
 Focus on one
service the firm recently
introduced or a traditional
one that is losing clients or
has declining billing.
From your
existing client base select
interview subjects who are
likely to provide important
insights because they switch
providers frequently, use
multiple providers for similar
services, have recently
changed CPAs (whether to or
from your firm) or use your
firm even though it is not the
most geographically convenient
or least expensive.
Assure your
subject you will not bill his
or her company for this work.
Schedule the appointment at a
time convenient for the
client.
Write an outline
or guide before the interview
to help you clarify your
purpose and organize your
research questions.
Use staff or
partners for interviewing who
thoroughly understand your
client’s business, are good
with people and are willing
and able to learn about a
client’s needs.
Translate what
you learn into actionable
plans to strengthen your
relationship with existing
clients as well as to develop
new business.
| |
HOW TO APPROACH CCR
Whether you or a consultant performs the
interview, use these guidelines:
Focus on one service.
Choose the topic you most want to
know about. Good areas for market feedback include
services that have been losing clients or have
experienced declining billing, or new ones the
firm recently introduced and wants to strengthen.
Pick good interview candidates.
Select from your existing client
base. Choose clients who use the service you are
researching and who are likely to provide insights
because they
Have switched CPAs recently (whether
to or from your firm).
Use multiple providers for similar
services (have one CPA for taxes and another for
benefits and compensation, for example).
Use your services even though your
firm is not the most geographically convenient or
the least expensive. Case studies of
defections, both to and from your firm (interview
former clients for this information, too), may
reveal a cluster of circumstances that signal when
a client likely will switch. Use what you learn to
strengthen your relationship with both established
and new clients. For example, improving existing
business might consist of sending clients detailed
invoices if feedback indicates confusion about
what they’re paying for. An example of a
marketing-new-services situation could be a firm
with a recently credentialed business valuation
(BV) partner who has done a few engagements and
wants to expand the segment. CCR interviews of
that firm’s BV clients can find out what types of
situations triggered their need for BV (a sale, a
succession plan or a divorce, for example). Their
specific situations may provide insight to help
you pitch BV to firms in similar circumstances.
Also, you may learn why a business might (or might
not) want to use the same firm that does its taxes
for other work such as valuations.
APPLY GRACIOUS PERSISTENCE
Whether an interviewer is a consultant or is
from your firm, researchers need to have business
experience broad enough to enable them to
recognize important insights when they hear them,
and they must be able to graciously yet
persistently pursue a line of questioning to its
conclusion. Choose experienced staff or partners
who thoroughly understand enterprise, are good
with people, are willing and able to learn about a
client’s needs and have experience translating
data into actionable business-development plans.
(Although really deep knowledge develops only from
years on the job, encourage your firm’s junior
staff to listen carefully for client insights—it
will help later.)
Choose a CCR interviewer who listens.
Avoid interviewing pitfalls such as
someone who talks about your firm rather than the
client’s business. Instead talk about the client’s
purchase process; follow up on potentially useful
client statements.
Make the interview a conversation.
Briefly thank the client for taking
the time to meet. Reiterate that your purpose is
to hear his or her description of the engagement
process for the specific type of service you are
researching, such as tax planning or auditing.
Answer any of his or her questions, but return to
the subject of the client’s experience quickly.
Again, you’re not there to talk about your firm.
Prepare a written guide.
Before starting, write an outline to
help you clarify your purpose and organize your
questions. In contrast to survey interviews, you
won’t read from a script that asks clients
questions such as “How did you hear about our
services?” and instructs them to select an answer
from a list of alternatives such as: “ad,
referral, other.” Your questions can’t be a
boilerplate script; client stories must be able to
go in their own individual directions. Use written
guides as you would an engagement checklist to
make sure you cover all the bases.
Tailor your questions. To
get clients to speak in their own words, make your
questions personal. Tailor them to the client and
specific situation. If an existing client recently
began to use a new service, ask, “What brought you
to add this service now?” Inquire of new clients
“Why did you retain our firm at this time?” and
“How did you find us?” Each interview will
follow a unique path depending on the client and
the details of the engagement you’re discussing,
but the following key questions may elicit
insights valuable to your firm:
What started you on the road to using
this service?
Why at this particular time—and not
before?
What was the hardest part of this
process, and why?
Did you get stuck at any point? If
so, how?
How did you decide the price for this
service was acceptable?
Should I talk to anyone else to get
more of the story behind this decision?
If you retained another firm to
provide this service before, how does the past
experience differ from the most recent one with
us?
What made you decide that you trusted
our firm to work in your best interests?
Pay careful attention to the answers. Keep
asking for additional details and concrete
examples until you understand how the client made
the decision to retain your firm for the
particular service. Also,
Take notes—discreetly.
Most researchers take handwritten
notes and transcribe them after completing their
interviews. Use a tape recorder or laptop as a
backup if the client is comfortable about it and
it doesn’t interfere with the process.
Go beyond the superficial.
Be alert to issues raised so you can
dig for the underlying dynamics. In a written
survey a client might name quality or price as
particularly important to a purchasing decision,
and the information will end there. CCR gives you
a chance to learn more. For example, if a
client says, “I wasn’t happy with my previous
firm,” a researcher should ask what specifically
he or she didn’t like. In one case, probing led
the client to give the interviewer concrete
answers such as: “They sent out three different
new accountants in each of the past three years”
and “No one in the firm understood my business and
could give me advice.”
TURN PATTERNS INTO ACTION
Share early interview findings with other
firm members. E-mail every employee involved in
the process of getting, serving or keeping
clients: partners, senior, junior and
administrative staff who interact with the public.
Ask for their input about clients’ stories. Your
staff’s responses may spark questions you can use
to delve deeper for information. Note that
employees likely will cooperate with future
implementation changes if you solicit their input
and take them seriously. Other good news: It’s
possible to design, conduct and complete a survey
in less than a month, and it doesn’t require a
huge budget to do it. (Look at
http://directory.google.com/Top/Business/Marketing_and_Advertising/Market_Research_Suppliers
on the Internet.) Some CCR projects
can tell you what you want to know in as few as
five interviews of different clients, but 10 to 25
typically will yield a more thorough range of
information. After you collect all the material
you intend to, analyze it for themes. Many firms
have clients in different businesses with
different needs and preferences, so the
implications of their reports may emerge as a
pattern only after several narratives combine.
Discuss with others in your firm any issues that
come up repeatedly, and then decide how to
translate the data into action. | 
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