Magical Client Experiences Don’t Look Like What I Just Went Through
I couldn’t decide whether to go to Salt Lake City or Denver for vacation, so I called the airlines to get prices.
“Airfare to Denver is $300,” the cheery salesperson replied. “And what about Salt Lake City?” “We have a really great rate to Salt Lake — $99,” she said “But there is a stopover.” “Where?” “In Denver,” she said.
I have had to do a few dreaded things recently, and I just knew the institutions were going to make it onerous for me to complete them. In fact, they made it furiously frustrating, especially since I was travelling at the time.
I had to renew my business Cyber and E&O insurance.
It all kicks off with an email from them with a fillable PDF attached
A fillable PDF that makes me fill in the same dang information I complete every year, along with a myriad of insurance options that have prices beside them
It is up to me to scroll back and see what options I chose and how much they were, add them in a bottom box and calculate the sales tax myself to come up with a total in a final box
I have to email it back (with business information I’d rather not be emailing around), and hope I picked the correct options and did the math correctly (yes, I’m a good bookkeeper - no, I’m not good at math when I’m confused about the options…)
They confirm - by email, again - that I completed the form correctly (or not, and it was not…)
Once we are through all this… wait for it… they send me yet another email asking when they can call to get my payment information* ⬅️⬅️⬅️ I am not kidding!
Hey, insurance companies, how about an online form! It’s 2025!
Send me a form prepopulated with last year’s info, logic jumps so I can skip vast swaths of questions that don’t relate to me at all, pop open boxes to explain what the options mean, the ability to calculate what I am choosing as I go along and then a place to enter my payment info.
Now, that would have been a pretty sweet client experience, right?!
As I am in the middle of the insurance process, my husband and I are future-planning and setting up a secured line of credit. It’s wise to do this when we both have operating businesses and solid income rather than when we are retired. We can use the funds for investments or whatnot - or never use them - but the timing was right to get this done. When I say the timing was right, I don’t mean the emotional timing.
I knew how this would go because it’s the same darn experience from all the big institutions.
I get an email with a list of what they need from me
I copy the list into a spreadsheet to track the docs as I gather them
When I am ready to send them, I realize I have no secure way of doing so, and request how
I receive an email with instructions on how to access their secure email system
Not a portal to upload or a system or checklist to track what I have sent
I send the emails in batches with related information so I can organize them better, put links to the docs in my spreadsheet and dates of when I sent them (because, yes, I am a list-tracking-lunatic)
The institution gave my contact no system, SOPs, or templates on how to track and organize why and what they needed. She was sending our docs up the line to someone else who was sending them up the line - none of who had a company-mandated system to deal with the information.
So, of course, I had to send some things a few times. Or I had to send a different version of the document they wanted because they hadn’t been specific about it in their request.
They were playing the tin-can-telephone version of document sharing; no coordinated communication methods or single place of aggregated data access.
I’m not faulting my contact; she was lovely and super helpful and apologizing when she shouldn’t have had to. It’s the big bank/big insurance/big corporation way of dealing with clients.
Then, the final agreement had to be signed in person. Yup, in person.
Hey lending institutions, how about an e-signature! It’s 2025!
You may think this does not sound like a big deal, and in the end, I suppose it really isn’t. Except, there was a point when I thought about moving to another provider for both of these products because I got petty with my frustration.
Why do the big businesses leave it up to us little folks to figure out the hows of getting information to them?
Don’t do this!
If you do nothing else with your firm’s systems right now, set your clients up to love dealing with you. Make it easy for them to work with you. Tell them precisely what you need, why you need it, and when you need it. And then give them an easy and secure way to get stuff to you. Maybe even do a FAQ for them on obtaining what you need.
Build them forms and checklists
Give them upload links
Give the deadlines and then send gentle reminders
Let them know what happens if they don’t follow through
Provide a platform for e-signing documents
Finally, thank them for doing what you ask
You may have clients who will never deal with online systems, and that’s cool if they are still a great fit for your firm. Let them bring in the paper and sit with you to sign stuff. Human-to-human interaction is underrated these days, no?
But, to future-proof your business, you will need to create seamless online client experiences at some point.**
There is no reason not to. We live in an awesome era of technology to take the lift off you.
If you don’t know where to start or want help with what you have started, I’d love to help. I want every accounting firm to create magical client experiences - ones that are nothing like the big institution ones!
Kellie :-}
*To add to my frustration, the insurance company added it up wrong the first go around at payment, sent me a revised amount email, and I had to set up a second call to give them my payment info (you can’t call in).
**There was a “famous” restaurant where I grew up. It was the place to go for years, and because it had the legacy cachet, it updated its menu way too late in the game. And it never updated its decor. Guess what? Their clientele dwindled because they either got too old to go out or they actually died. And the “cachet” restaurant died right along with its legacy customers.
