If firms don't make it easy for clients, their staff suffers as a consequence. Firms with old technology have difficulty recruiting new staff as the outdated technology makes staff/client interactions more frustrating. When requesting documents is cumbersome for clients, the staff is left waiting for information, productivity suffers, and everyone works more hours than necessary during tax season. You’re left with a team that feels beaten down and unhappy with a high possibility of turnover. Staff members who remain have difficulty completing work with missing data and they spend hours of unbillable time looking for documents needed to do their work. Inefficiency means every day becomes frustrating, even more so at tax time. Perhaps even worse, if your firm isn't quick and highly responsive, your clients often leave for a firm that better meets their needs.

Security remains a top focus for all firms, but shouldn't come at the expense of easy interactions. When retrieving client documents, the clients can place the firm at risk by taking less-secure shortcuts that compromise firm security! Additionally, interactions need to maintain transparency across staff to ensure a quick response to client inquiries. This way, everyone feels and performs better. For firms, it can be important to keep client interactions with the firm itself instead of individual staff members so that no data or clients get lost if key staff reorganize or leave. Clients no longer follow the individual staff member they have a relationship with but remain with the firm.

Learning Objectives:

• Recall techniques to easily improve security


• List activities to improve client and team member experience


• Outline ways to improve document storage


• Summarize ways to maintain transparency and firm relationships while receiving client information and delivering final work products


• Differentiate between key products and competitors to pick the best tools for client and staff experience