Track 6: The Missing Link: Connecting Employee and Client Experience

Transcription:

Arianna Campbell (00:08):

Well, we are right at time, so we're going to go ahead and get started. We have an action packed 50 minutes to spend together, so I want to make sure that we are making the best use of our time. So we are going to talk about connecting employee and client experience. That's what we're going to be focused on during our time together. And I kind of want to set the stage by saying that the missing link is not magic. If you were hoping that there was going to be a magic wand that we were passing out at this presentation, I'm sorry, that's not actually what we're going to be doing. But what I will tell you is that when we can start connecting these dots, it does start creating magic. But there's a lot of work that has to go into our focus on both client and employee experience.



(00:54):

And so during our time together, we're going to talk about how can we really focus on building those connections so that you all can go and create the magic within your organizations. So a little bit about me. My name is Arianna Campbell. I am a shareholder and COO at Boomer Consulting. I've been with Boomer Consulting for 15 years. You can see different information about me here on this slide. I'd call out two things. The first one is around my passion, which is helping CPA firms navigate their continuous improvement journeys. And as you're going to find with our conversations about employee and client experience, we never arrive where we're all done. We never just check it off and say, great job. We have perfected our employee and client experience. Let's give each other high fives and go home. It is a continuous improvement journey where we are really looking to achieve progress, not perfection.



(01:48):

The other thing that I would call out is my LinkedIn profile. There's going to be some different tools and resources that I'm sharing here with you today. If you're interested in getting those, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or just connect with me on LinkedIn. It's always great to add new connections and I can be sure to share those tools with you. So Boomer Consulting, we work exclusively with CPA firms. We've been around for almost 30 years and we help them in these five areas. So process, talent, leadership, technology and growth. And we have communities training and consulting in these five areas. And you'll find that as we really look at our experience strategies, that it impacts each of these five areas and helps us to be sustainably successful and future ready. With that, it's also important to note that the insights I'm going to be sharing with you, the ideas I'm going to be sharing with you come from a large number of them come from our member communities.



(02:51):

So you can see our nine member communities listed here and employee and client experience are topics of conversations in all of them, especially our talent circle, our managing partner circle, our operations circle, our process circle, our marketing and business development circle, and also in learning and development. So it's crossing all of the different areas of the firms. So the insights that I'm going to be sharing with you are not just from things that knowledge or wisdom that I have in my head. It's from hearing and what these people in these communities are sharing as well as what insights our six other consultants are sharing as well. So that's a little bit about me. Oh, one thing that more that I'd mention, I live in Charleston, South Carolina. So I went coast to coast. So I am on East Coast time. Any other East coast friends in here? Okay, no napping. East coast friends. No napping. Okay, let's learn a little bit more about all of you. I think it's really helpful for you to have a good understanding of who's sitting around in the room with you. And so let's start off with firm size. This is just a raise your hand activity. If you have less than 30 FTE, raise your hand



(04:00):

And then look around to see Sue's represented. Okay, 31 to 100. Okay, 101 to 500 and then more than 500. Okay, good to see the distribution of firm size in the room. We can really learn from each other depending on our various firm sizes. It allows us to do different things. So let's talk about your role. So partners in the room, raise your hands. Okay, senior managers or managers, do we have any staff members that are being provided with an awesome opportunity to learn? Yay. I love that. I love that. Our non-accounting professionals. Okay, and then who would classify themselves as other? Fair enough. Fannie, I see you back there with your other I get it. I get it, I get it.



(05:02):

So as we're thinking about how we can learn from each other, not only during this session but beyond, again, it does have help to have that perspective. So what are we going to cover? We're going to cover five different areas. First, we're going to talk about the opportunity ahead, and then we're going to make sure that we have a firm understanding of employee experience and client experience, and then we will work to actually connect the two. But one of the key goals is for you to walk away with some actionable steps on what you can do to take these ideas back to your organizations. So let's start off with the opportunity ahead. One of the things that we really need to be focused on when it comes to employee and client experience is really focusing on moving from an old way of thinking to a new way of thinking.



(05:51):

So back in 2011, Joseph Pine and James Gilmore wrote the book, the Experience Economy. Has anyone read it? Has anyone read The Experience Economy? No Hands Going Up, write this one down. It's a good book that can really challenge us within the profession to understand the importance of focusing on experience. A couple of highlights that I'll share from this book is that it really refers to what is happening just on a grander scale when it comes to the importance of experience. Because in order to understand what we need to do in our firms, we need to understand what's happening in the bigger picture. So they talk about the progression of economic value from commodities to goods, to services to experiences, and one of the examples that they share is around Starbucks. And one of the key things that they've done is really turned the service of delivering coffee into an experience. There are a number of different companies that have done the same thing. When we think about what people are looking for, they are really looking not just for a service but for an experience. And so we need to make sure that we're thinking about where our opportunities lie there, even what the mindset of our clients are because this is the world that they're living in.



(07:11):

I love this slide or this graphic that was expanded on the idea of what's outlined in the experience economy. Over here we have competitive positioning. Under here we have undifferentiated, and up here we have differentiated. So the more that we can focus on differentiating our competitive positioning, the more opportunities that we create to connect with our clients, with our customers on a different level. So here you see we have customization increasing going through that continuum that was on the previous slide from commodities, goods delivery experiences, and eventually transformation. A couple of things that I really think are interesting is that they talk about this line here where we have high margin and low margin services and time spent versus time saved. So really thinking about the mindset that people are having as we're moving up this progression of economic value. I think that right now within the profession, we're pretty well seated here in the delivery area.



(08:17):

The question is how can we continue to move along to experiences and transformation? So again, what exactly does this mean for accounting firms? Well, first I would say do you generally, does this resonate with you all on how we're living our everyday lives and the experiences that we are seeking? After I think about the experience that I have with Uber, it's faster and sometimes even cheaper for me to take a taxi. But I need that Uber experience. You already have my information in the app. I can just click it. I can just go. Oftentimes I even have to wait longer, right? There's a taxi right there that I just walk right on past. I'm not getting in that taxi, I'm not doing that. I need my Uber experience. So again, there are a lot of different ways that we see this showing up. So what does this mean for accounting firms?



(09:04):

Right now? We are in a similar progression. Our panel this morning talked quite a bit about this transition that we're experiencing, but as we move from transactional to compliance and then ultimately from performance to strategic, our question is how do we create experiences that benefit both our clients and our employees? One of the things to think about is that as we make our transition from transactional to compliance and compliance to performance, we're really relying on data and information. But as we continue to move into the performance and strategic, those are more knowledge connectors. Those is where we really get into opportunities to create more experiences both internally and externally. But we have to make sure that we're pushing through that line to really not only to define, but to deliver those services that we are going to offer to our clients. So essentially a shift is happening from transactional and compliance, which is where our clients are really coming to us for things that they need to really breaking down the silos.



(10:13):

So think of the left hand side of the silos of different departments and areas within the firm where we need to bring it all together for more of a unified firm and organizational approach That's based on relationships, value, and experiences. That really helps us to identify and align with what our clients want. The question is, are our employees and clients getting a different experience depending on what department they're interacting with? Do they get a different experience when they work with tax department versus when they work with the audit department versus when they work with the CS department? Is it different? You're like, yes, yes. I would like to testify that that is true. Well then with our clients, as we're continuing to expand how we're working with them and becoming more advisory, we need to make sure that we're really giving thoughtful consideration to creating a more consistent and engaging experience.



(11:07):

So that is our task. So really as we get into talking about how we can make this happen, how we can break down these silos, how we can focus on that relationship value and experience, it needs to start with a vision. So if you don't have a vision for your organization, it's going to be really hard to define what experience it is you're trying to provide to your employee and to your clients. Your vision should not be to be like everyone else. Your vision should really be based on unique differentiators, how you can create a competitive advantage, but you have to make sure that you have a vision that is defined and then taking it even a step further, having a strategic plan that documents that, outlines that so that you can align your experience with the actual vision and strategy of the firm. So raise your hand if your firm has a strategic plan. Okay, so keep your hand up if that strategic plan is actually documented, like written down. Okay, that's good. That's good. We didn't lose, I don't think any hands raise your hand if it is distributed to the entire organization.



(12:23):

So when we think about client and employee experience, the first place to start is with that clarity. If you don't have a strategic plan, it's something that I would highly recommend you looking into. We help firms with strategic planning. We know people who help firms with strategic planning. We have a guide to strategic planning that if it's something you'd like to take on internally, I'd be happy to share with you. But I really have to emphasize that at the foundation of client and employee experience is vision and strategy for the organization so that you can make sure those are in alignment and what kind of experience you're looking to create.



(13:00):

So we know what the foundation is. We have our experience economy. We know that we need to have a vision and strategy defined. Let's make sure that we're talking about the same things. When we talk about employee and client experience, we are starting with employee experience because we want to make sure that culturally that we are really providing an experience that resonates with our employees. There's going to be a couple of different ways that we can do that, but our employees, without our employees, we're not able to serve our clients, and so we want to make sure that we are creating an experience for them. That really ties back to firm culture. So what is employee experience? Employee experience is a worker's perceptions about their journey through all the touch points at a particular company, starting with job candidacy through to the exit from the company. Many times people think that employee experience is the after busy season party or the dinners that we order during busy season or the activities that we do. And those things all add value, but it is not the sole part of employee experience because when we truly define employee experience, we are looking to provide a consistent experience all the way from job candidacy through to exit from the company or growing into another role. So here are some indicators that your organization, your firm needs an employee experience strategy. Raise your hand when you see one that resonates with you or that sticks out to you.



(14:42):

I see one hand go up, a couple hands going up. Usually we see most of the hands go up in the room. There's typically at least one opportunity. So as you're looking through this list, what's sticking out to you? Someone just want to kind of shout out and share



Audience Member 1 (15:02):

Career paths.



Arianna Campbell (15:03):

Career paths. Tell me more.



Audience Member 1 (15:05):

So the steps for a mid-level manager to be able to make it to director and partner and how they're rewarded, how they incentivize and recognize their performance rarely exists and across the firms that we have.



Arianna Campbell (15:22):

Okay



Audience Member 1 (15:22):

And then even junior partners don't testify to how they got to becoming partner in the first place, help them themselves into senior leadership.



Arianna Campbell (15:33):

So the comment there, just to repeat is that there's not clarity in career progression and the steps of how you do that and through the employee's career, but even at the junior partner level, not understanding really how they got to that role and what the expectations are. And I think that's very true. Many times people are promoted because of their technical skills, but nothing else beyond that is really defined or clarified in the beginning. What about someone else? What sticks out to you on this list? Make sure you shout, yeah.



Audience Member 2 (16:04):

Expectations for the partners.



Arianna Campbell (16:06):

Yeah, tell me more about that.



Audience Member 2 (16:09):

Well, for us, we have a consistent deliverable that we give. We operate in the, if something happens, we expect to complete that work variation. We experienced it last time. We had directors out for three months and because we had clear expectations that were the same, anybody could pick up and get that work done and those



Arianna Campbell (16:36):

It's a great point. So the comment was around different expectations from different managers and partners and that when you work to create alignment there, anyone can pick up the work and move it forward. And that also helps with employee experience because employees aren't trying to manage a bunch of different ways to get the work done and think about what kind of experience that creates. Sometimes I share the story. I was working on a process improvement project with a firm and we were talking about personal preferences in their tax project and they had, I think it was probably about a 20 partner firm and one of the staff members raised their hand and said, I've figured it out. I know how to, I know I've got it all figured out. We were all like, well, tell me, what did you do? They said, I created a spreadsheet and across one side I have all the names of all the partners and managers.



(17:24):

Then across the top, I have all the different ways that they could possibly prefer having things, including a post-it note. And then I've just kind of checked it so that I can keep track. Another staff person raised their hand and said, can I get that list? I saw you nodding your head, I saw you nodding your head back there. Can I get that list? I was like, no, we can't get that list. What we want to do is move toward having more consistent ways of doing things because doing that really does impact the experience that our employees are having, and that leads to burnout.



(17:56):

When we think about employee experience and where we have the opportunity to make change, it takes us to the employee experience phases. So again, I think that one of the biggest opportunities within accounting firms is to think about employee experience just beyond the fun things that we do. So the employee experience phases are actually first we start with the attract phase and then the recruit phase. Then there's an onboarding phase, a development phase, a retaining phase, and then a transition phase. Again, transition could be moving into another role or it could be moving out of the organization. And the question that we need to be asking is, are we providing a consistent experience across the organization as we move through these different phases? If you asked each department about what they're doing in the attracting and recruiting phases, would you find similarities or would you find that things are different?



(18:52):

Onboarding is a key place of opportunity. Are there different onboarding processes that are happening that are leading to maybe a disjointed or siloed employee experience? So really going through and asking these questions can be really valuable. When we help firms with this, this is a really basic tool that we use to have a conversation about this. It's called an employee experience journey map. So you have the five phases, sorry, the six phases across the top there, and then we have a conversation around what are the key activities that are happening across the firm in each of these different phases. So in the tax department, what are the key activities that are happening in the attract phase in the audit department? What are the key things? So we're having this conversation with a cross-functional team with representatives from different service lines as well as operations and technology and saying, what are you seeing in each of these?



(19:47):

And then we can have a conversation about what are the top three improvement opportunities to help improve the experience. Because typically things start getting highlighted pretty quickly on what we can do differently to reduce some of the friction. There's typically some ahas of, oh, I didn't realize that you were doing that way. I didn't realize that your onboarding steps looked like that. I didn't realize that this is what was happening within that step of the process. And even if your organization is on the smaller side, this is still even a really good individual activity and thinking exercise to say, how are these different parts connected to help create a consistent experience? Because what we don't want to be doing is to be missing opportunities just because we have a lack of clarity. So that's one tool to consider. Has anyone gone through this exercise before?



(20:41):

Okay, it's an interesting one. Create some different ahas. Again, if you're interested in getting this tool, just reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm Arianna Campbell, and you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'd be happy to send it to you. So the other thing that we want to make sure that we understand is for our employees, making sure that we understand the individuals more specifically. So another activity that can be really helpful when it comes to employee experience is creating employee personas by role. So it's going through an exercise by role within the firm. So you're asking for partners, for managers, for staff operations, so on and so forth. You're asking these questions. So the first one is when we think about, let's just use the example of managers within our organization. Who are they? What are their demographics? Education time at the firm?



(21:32):

Where are they located? Do we primarily see our managers being hybrid? Do we feel like our managers are primarily more on site? Do we see our managers being remote? Who are they? What are their demographics, goals and motivation? What do they actually want to accomplish and what motivates them in order to create an experience that really supports the people in our organization? Understanding their motivators is really key. What motivates them? Frustrations, understanding what obstacles they're facing and what problems they're trying to solve. The key to having a better employee experience is to really help to be an obstacle remover so that you can focus on really helping your people to not get bogged down on things that contribute to stress and burnout. But first, we need to understand what those obstacles are. The next one is interactions. Who are they interacting with and who influences them?



(22:28):

Because the experience that any of our employees have is directly related to those who are influencing them. Different managers are going to have different experiences depending on what partners they're working with, for example. And that could be a positive experience or that could be a negative experience. So this might highlight opportunities for us to find more consistency there. And then really my favorite one is their success path. So how do they perform at their best and highest level and how do they find success at the firm? This isn't just a career path, it's truly a success path of what can we do to help to make sure that they're successful.



(23:09):

Remembering that not all employees necessarily want to advance up the ladder of their career. Success could mean different things for different people. It could mean this, it could mean this, but we have to make sure that we're having those conversations and really determining, helping to determine what success looks like for these different roles. So the tool that we use to do this, again, it's a simple tool that has the different roles on the left, the questions across the top, getting a cross-functional team together that's really focused on employee experience. That's looking at not only the employee journey phases, but then also the personas can be a really valuable exercise to help to understand how you can improve employee experience. Has anyone done a personas exercise before? Okay, you've done one. Did anyone else raise their hand? Okay. So yeah, it can be, and you should raise your hand. Again, you can share with people at networking, at the networking piece, how you did that and what you did. Was it beneficial? Well, not in the context of accounting. Ah, yes, that's fair, but it's still going through the exercise itself and helping people to understand how you navigated. That can be a good thing to share.



(24:22):

So that can seem like it's a lot of work. And then we have to do more meetings and then we have to figure more things out. And it could be adding another things to our plates, but it is worth investing the time because research proves that companies that are leveraging employee experience strategies see better business outcomes, better people outcomes, and better innovation outcomes. So you're going to be more likely to exceed financial targets, more likely to delight customers, more likely to engage and retain employees, and then it also impacts their ability to innovate effectively. So it's worth investing the time into doing this. And then we also need to be keeping in mind that this is how leadership is being managed, is being measured is by the experience that they're providing to their employees. Things like meaningful work, strong management, having a positive workplace health and wellbeing.



(25:21):

That includes mental health and wellbeing, growth opportunities and trust in the organization. So again, by doubling down and being committed to focusing on employee experience, we can also help to better connect with our employees, which is going to make them more sticky, which is going to make them want to refer us to others that they know, and it's going to help us to have a much better working environment. So those are the basics of employee experience. I want to talk about client experience now to make sure that we understand our opportunities there. So what is client experience? Client experience is defined by the interactions and experiences that your client has with your business throughout the entire client journey from first contact to becoming a happy, loyal, and I always like to add referring client. So when we think about client experience, there's something that we need to make sure that we all understand. Client service is not client experience. Client service is a part of client experience. Now, usually when I go into firms and I open up with a question of, so tell me a little bit about your client experience strategies, the things that they tell me are related to client service.



(26:40):

Yeah, you are like, yeah, I think that's probably how I would've answered that question too. Client service is a really important piece of the puzzle, but when we're thinking about client experience, it's actually much bigger than that. So here are indicators that your firm needs a client experience strategy. Raise your hand when you see something that resonates with you. Okay, what's sticking out as you're reading the list?



Audience Member 1 (27:12):

Communication across service lines,



Arianna Campbell (27:14):

Communication across service lines. What else is sticking out?



Audience Member 2 (27:18):

Clients experience,



Audience Member 1 (27:20):

Client service.



Arianna Campbell (27:21):

Yeah, you have that opportunity as well. Okay. Yeah,



Audience Member 1 (27:25):

I got some kind of interesting, we're employing all these new softwares, like deliver tax returns and get clients to pay their bills online and stuff. But it's come to my attention and just very clear that we don't really know what that software looks like on the user end.



(27:39):

So here we are. It'd be nice to just be able to experience some of that, but we just don't see it from the client side of that software. We just see it from the user side. It's kind of interesting when our managers and even some of our admin aren't able to even respond or coach or clients through how to use that software. And I talked to, I can't remember if it was Safe Send or IWiN or one of the softwares. I was like, it'd be really nice if you guys could let us deliver our own tax returns for ourselves so that we could sign our own tax returns. But it just doesn't seem to be a way to do that. But I thought it was kind of interesting concept.



Arianna Campbell (28:12):

And that's a really interesting point about a missing piece of implementing those new softwares, not being able to necessarily understand it from the client point of view. So that's an interesting opportunity that can lead to a disjointed client experience.



Audience Member 2 (28:25):

So one thing we've done for that, so we mandated, they give us client experience. We even set up four or five task clients that are internal employees, and we actually sense that it's like, Hey, what felt good? What didn't feel good? They want our business. And to me, that's something that we need to goes all down.



Audience Member 1 (28:54):

Well, even the front end, these electronic organisms that are going out and things, we know how to do tax returns, but we're so out of the loop and what is our client even experiencing?



Arianna Campbell (29:04):

And that is something that they should be able to provide. So another person in the room mentioned that they have mandated with those software providers that they can see the client experience side have several individuals in the organization who can have an understanding of what that part of the experience looks like. And I think that continuing to find ways to connect what we're doing internally to what our clients are experiencing is key because we want to make sure that especially as they're using multiple things, I know we're continuing to look for ways to integrate our technology, but as we're using different things and asking them to connect with them in different ways, we should always be asking what can we do to make it easier for our clients to do business with us? Because that's what provides the best experience. So if we aren't really focused on client experience, it can really restrict the firm's growth. And here are some indicators that your firm growth is being restricted. You all know the routine by now. If you see things that stick out to you, raise your hand or you can just share what's jumping out to you,



(30:15):

What's sticking out



Audience Member 1 (30:18):

Idea clients should be doing more.



Arianna Campbell (30:21):

Yeah, that one's frustrating, right? Yeah, because there's a lot that we can do to grow our existing clients. We do a lot of work to get new clients, but growing our existing clients, yes, upfront



Audience Member 1 (30:30):

Definitely the silos of information,



Arianna Campbell (30:33):

Silos of information, yeah, that's no fun, especially when we're asking for something we already asked for that can happen. Feel like



Audience Member 1 (30:40):

Accounting needs a good CR, something missing. That was one of the things I learned during covid. My wife works for Morgan Stanley. They log every phone call. Anybody can pick up and know what was discussed. And I've never seen somebody do that correctly.



Arianna Campbell (30:56):

Yeah, we actually have a number of firms in our communities who do use CRM systems really well. So if you'd like me to connect you with any of them, I'd be happy to continue that conversation. The other one that sticks out to me is the language, like my client, does anyone have that happening within their firm? At the heart of really having a consistent client experience is the belief that they are the firm's clients, because that's how we break down those silos that we talked about in the beginning. And we create those relationships, value and experience. But when we're still thinking of them as my clients, that can really create a hoarding mentality, which limits our ability to be able to provide a more connected client experience. So what should we do? We need to make sure that we're evaluating our opportunities through the different client experience phases.



(31:45):

And the five client experience phases are not just delivery, but before we even deliver. There is awareness when a client either existing or a prospect has the awareness that there's a problem that they need solved, then they go through a consideration phase where they're really thinking about what they need and who they should partner with in order to move forward. And then there's a decision making process that could just seem like a yes or no decision point, but there's actually a lot that our clients go through when they are making that decision. Then we have our delivery phase and then our growth phase and really focusing on having some structure and consistency in what kind of experience are we creating? That's a unique differentiator that helps us to grow our clients is really key. So one of the ways that you can really go about improving or identifying where there's areas of opportunity for your client experience is to do a client experience journey map.



(32:50):

So the questions that you ask for each phase are what actions is the client taking in? Let's say the consideration phase. We'll use that as an example. What actions is a client actually taking when they are in the consideration phase? Who is involved? So on their side, who's going to be involved? And then on our side, who are they reaching out to? And with that, is that actually a consistent experience? What technologies are being used? This is a big one. Technology is the glue that holds employee experience together and client experience together. But if it gets to the point where we are confusing ourselves both internally and externally with all of the technologies that we're using, that could create opportunity for us. So we want to make sure that we have clarity. When I walked through this exercise with a client that I was working with, we had our cross-functional team together.



(33:41):

There were so many comments on, I didn't know we used that technology. You're still using that. I thought that we had stopped using that one like last year. No, you're still using, oh, okay. What's the mindset of the client? Before this used to say, how's the client feeling? But my accounting friends don't like to talk about the F word, which is feelings. So it's actually about mindset because our clients are human and when we can actually connect with what they're feeling, then it can help us to understand what kind of experience we should be creating for them. But we'll call it mindset to make everybody feel better. But that's how we can really connect with our clients is by understanding that what are their actual pain points that are coming from that mindset? Are they feeling confused? Are they feeling panicked? Are they feeling curious?



(34:31):

How is our client actually feeling so that we know how to create an experience that aligns with that? And then my favorite question on this one is, what value is currently being provided? Are we providing any value during the awareness phase? Are we providing any value during the consideration phase? One of our clients as they were going through this, they realized that during the consideration phase, they had the opportunity to create a flyer that they emailed to clients that said it was the top 10 things that they should be looking for when choosing an advisory partner. And it was branded and it helped to give tips and different considerations so that as that client was talking to different places, they were constantly seeing that firm's flyer and branding right in front of them, which was keeping them top of mind, and that was a value add to their clients as well.



(35:20):

And then the last one is, what's the trigger to move to the next phase? Because many times we haven't identified what's the trigger and what do we do next? Especially between decision and delivery where the client says, yes, we're going to work with you, and then it's three or four months before we're like, oh, crap, we got to get ready and start this engagement. We need to reach out to them to do something. Does that happen? You don't have to raise your hand. It's okay. So we need to make sure that we know how are we clear internally on not just what are we going to do at this next step, but how do we know that they're ready to move to the next step? So this is the tool that you can use to have an internal conversation with a cross-functional team that by phase asks these different questions.



(36:05):

And it doesn't have to be an all or nothing. You could even take just one of these phases and walk through this exercise and come away with some actionable ways to improve your employee, excuse me, client experience. So something that you might want to consider. So as we're looking to understand here, our client journey map, many times we find that firms are focused on their existing clients as they're going through this, but it's really important to make sure that we're creating an experience for our target clients because we're not trying to have all the clients, right? We are trying to have target clients that really align with our growth goals, that were part of our strategic plan that help to create a unique advantage and competitive differentiators. And in order to do that, we need to make sure that we're clear internally about who our target client is so that we can then create an experience that aligns with that.



(37:04):

And as a result of that, all of our clients will benefit as we continue to move towards serving our target clients. So what questions should we be asking for identifying our target clients? The first one is, what types of clients do we want more of? If I were to tell you that I have 10 clients that would really benefit your organization and that you had magically, this is where the magic wand does come out, you have the capacity to be able to work on these clients, Bing, what type of clients would those be? What type of clients do you want more of? How would you describe them? What are their best characteristics, but also what are their challenging characteristics? Because even our target clients have challenging characteristics, their work may be complex. We may need to make sure that we are digging deeper into finding value, that we're setting aside more time to have conversations.



(37:55):

It could be that we need to have multi-layer relationships at different layers within their organizations. So what do those best and challenging characteristics look like? What do they value? Because the experience that we're creating for those clients should align with what they value. How much revenue do they generate? So when we do this activity with firms, we have the cross-functional team answer these questions individually, and then we provide a summary of the responses and we go through them together. This question is always all over the place of the how much revenue did they generate a target client, how much revenue do they generate? We need to make sure that we have clarity on that because a client that generates $500 worth of revenue is expecting a different experience or should get provided a different experience than one that's $50,000 worth of revenue. What kind of experience are we creating?



(38:48):

The 50,000 or the $500? The next one are what are three common service lines that this client would have, and then what are three additional services that this client could grow into? So that really helps us to think about the experience of today and then how we want to make sure that we're continuing to grow that experience that we're creating for them. The target client worksheet is a tool that we use. We hand it out to the cross-functional team, as I mentioned individually. They bring their responses back. We have a conversation and look to find commonality between that so that we can create the profile for our target client who has done this exercise before.



(39:32):

Okay, I think I saw four and a half hands go up. So this might be a tool that you might reach out if you'd like me to send it to you so that you can complete this exercise internally. So when we think about, again, our opportunity that we have, when we understand the importance of employee experience, the importance of client experience, what's left is for us to connect employee and client experience because this is called the missing link. I did note on the title of this presentation that it said the missing link. So what are the things that we want to make sure are linking employee and client experience together? There are four things, the four C's of connecting employee and client experience, clarity, consistency, collaboration and communication. And we need to make sure that we have clear objectives in each of these as we're thinking about employee and client experience.



(40:29):

If there's just one thing that you take away, this section here, just having this conversation internally in your firm and asking the question, where could we benefit from each of these four areas in connecting our employee and client experience? That can be a really rich conversation. So for clarity, we want to make sure that both employees and clients have clear understanding of their roles, responsibilities, processes, and expectations. Yes, both our employees and our clients. Our clients have responsibilities as well. The more that we can be transparent about goals, deliverables, timelines, and standards, the better connection that we're going to have between ex and cx. Consistency, making sure that there are uniform standards and processes and interactions, deliverables, service delivery, and quality. And again, we're talking about across the organization, not just by department, not just by department. We're talking about across the organization and we want to be applying the same level of excellence and attention to detail in every engagement, communication, an effective exchange of information within the organization and between the organization and its clients.



(41:44):

You'll see in all of these that technology plays a really important role. We want to make sure though, as we're using our technology that we need to remember that automation doesn't replace communication. Automation doesn't replace communication, and that we still need to make sure that we are communicating effectively in the ways that really helps to move things forward, but that also adds value to our clients. So again, regular updates, feedback loops and open lines of communication across all levels, both internally and externally. And then lastly, collaboration. So we want to make sure that we have cooperative efforts between employees and clients to achieve shared goals. We should have joint planning, problem solving, decision making processes along those lines that incorporate input from both sides. We don't want to be order takers, which is a trap that we fall into in the profession. A client says, this is what I want to have, or this is what I need. We say, okay, and then we go and do it. So how can we start being more collaborative with our clients from the very beginning? How can we start being more collaborative, supporting our employees to be more collaborative and have better conversations from the very beginning so that we can truly discover what value and what experience can we provide to them that's going to help to provide long-term benefit. And that comes from collaboration.



(43:12):

So I love these quotes, pulling it all together. If a business cares for its people and they feel engaged and empowered, in turn, they will care for the clients of that business. If your business does not care for its people, your clients will interact with disengaged, unhappy employees and disengagement and unhappiness is what they will remember. Your clients will remember about the experience. Client experience often reflects how the organization's employees feel about their work. So satisfied and supported employees are more likely to enable positive client experiences. Empathy is key and can help organizations build trust and enable a loyal customer base. That's from the book customer what that is all about client experience. And I think that it's very clear and outlining the connection between employee and client experience. So one thing that I'd also say is at the heart of all the tools or the things that we talked about is a human to human connection.



(44:14):

Because that is what experience ultimately comes down to is how are we connecting beyond the organizational level and connecting at the individual level. We're not just connecting organization to organization, we're connecting person to person, and we need to make sure that we're doing that. So what are your actionable next steps? So you can reach out to me for the tools if you'd like, we can have a follow-up conversation. You can do those things. But there are actually 10 steps that I would share with you that really that we've seen firms use to walk through the process of actually implementing a client experience, an employee experience, an integrated strategy. So those steps are to first start off with confirming leadership, alignment and vision. This goes back to the strategic planning, making sure that we are on the same page about what it is that we are looking to achieve in our organization so that we can create an integrated experience that aligns with that.



(45:10):

Creating a cross-functional team, which I mentioned several times when I was talking about the different tools, but having a dedicated team that's really taking on the focus of client and employee experience. This is where we are seeing firms really start to double down and understand that the experience economy is the future of the accounting profession, just as it is in every other part of what our clients are experiencing. So they're doubling down on actually creating a team to focus on this. That team should define goals, the goals and objectives of the integrated strategy. They should understand the current initiatives because oftentimes we jump right into what's working and what we're not doing well. We should start with what are the things that we are doing really well? Raise your hand if you feel like you have a successful firm or organization.



(46:02):

So there are probably people are like peer pressure. I should probably raise my hand. It would be awkward. Most of you're probably already doing some things really well in each of these spaces. So you want to make sure that you're continuing to build on those things because that again is part of your competitive advantage. From there, after you understand the current initiatives, that's when you want to start discussing those improvement opportunities. The tools that I shared can be a really great way to start that. We want to implement those improvement ideas while focusing on accountability. So even just having the team meet to discuss to make sure that they're reviewing with the different areas across the firm can really help to support these initiatives. But most importantly, you need to have a continuous improvement mindset. So we are searching for progress, not perfection. When it comes to employee experience and client experience.



(46:54):

We will never arrive, as I said at the beginning, we are never going to arrive at perfection. But what we want to make sure is that we're saying what can we do to be better than where we were before? So the last tool that I have for you is the take it back tool. So one of the great things about conferences like these is that you learn a whole bunch of information. But what we don't want to happen is for that information to just remain in a silo. Like you took it, you put the notes in your phone or in your notebook, and then you go back to the firm and you're like busy. And so then you don't share the ideas with anyone else. So I want you to take a moment before we wrap up to identify, it doesn't even have to be three, at least one thing that you want to share with someone who is not in this room. What's that key point? Who are you going to share it with? Why do they need to know? And by when are you going to share it with them? Take a minute to jot it down because you're going to share it with your neighbor and then we're going to finish up. So you actually have to commit to this because you can't just tell your neighbor nothing. So take 60 seconds,



(48:00):

Jot it down. Okay. Tell your neighbor what are you taking back? Need a neighbor to share with? Okay. 30 more seconds of sharing.



Audience Member 3 (49:52):

Yes.



Arianna Campbell (50:23):

Okay. We are going to get ready to wrap up because we are at time, but the great part is that you can keep these conversations going. If you've never met the neighbor who you just talked to, make sure you get their name and information. So maybe you can connect with them and keep the sharing going. I have one last tool to share. It's our continuous improvement scorecard that talks about on the bigger picture, where do you have opportunities for continuous improvement within your business. So that's a tool that you might like to take advantage of. But in closing, just thank you for attending the session. I hope that you found some things that you can take back to your organization so that you can start integrating your client and employee experience strategies. Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of the conference.