Developing accountancy firm tone of voice

How your accounting firm can respond to website enquiries so you build the best relationships

Developing accountancy firm tone of voice

Your accountancy firm website is your ‘shop front’, you’ll get a lot of leads from here: all at varying stages of buying. Some may just want general info, some want to sign up with you or some no idea where to start.  These leads could be a fit for your firm: but some will not be.

Here’s some tips on how to respond to website enquiries:

Add some qualifier steps

Before organising a call or meeting use your website to qualify these leads a little more and check if you’re a fit for each other.

For example if your niche focus is dentists, make that clear on your website: through your content and some qualifiers. This will deter those who aren’t dentists and improve the quality of leads that come through initially.

A qualifier could be a questionnaire or some extra info they need to provide. It needs to makes them take action.

This will help you determine if it’s worth taking the next step to become a client, and see if they are serious about working with you. If they can’t answer a few questions, they’re not going to communicate well once they’re on-board!

In our case we always ask prospects to first fill in our main diagnostic.

It will save you both time in the long run.

Start with a qualifier questionnaire

Have a think about what you need to know from prospects to determine if they’re a fit, and if you can help.

  • Start with all the basics like name, email, company name
  • Add a question which asks about their industry. This helps you see if they are in your niche
  • Ask how you can help, and ask specifics about what they need support with
  • What are their frustrations, or their current situation?
  • Find out what accounting software they use

It can be as simple as a Google form, or as integrated as a custom form on your website. (We use Gravity Forms which is a WordPress plugin.) Be clear why you’re asking these questions so they also see the value.

Remember, the questionnaire doesn’t need to be complicated. Once you have created it, set it up on your website so people can access it directly. You can also simply share the direct link on social, in marketing emails, in a blog, or personally in an email.

For example:

“Hi Jenn,

Thanks for getting in touch! Could you fill in this quick questionnaire and then I’ll be able to see whether or how we could help?

Cheers,

Karen”

Fresh Financials do this well. View their questionnaire here and explanation here.

It’s also a great idea to incorporate this as part of a campaign. Automatically send those who complete the survey a copy of their answers, and if you have a CRM system make sure you tag these people to keep track of where they are at in the sales process. (If you need help with campaign planning, talk to us.)

Record a video

We’re starting to do tons of videos on the questions we get asked: how much is this, where do I begin, what about if I had this issue?

Now whenever someone gets in touch, if they ask one of those questions we can answer it first via video and then further questions we either send them more videos or say “That’s a good one! Looks like it might be worth our having a call to chat about it” (if they’ve completed the diagnostic).

You could record a quick video on some of the things everyone asks at the start, and close the video by asking them to complete the questionnaire.

Plus, you can use these videos in your social media or client marketing (depending on the topic)!

Write a FAQ blog posts

Writing blog posts on the questions you and your team are asked gives you some really valuable content.

You could start making a list of the “big 5” categories that everyone wants to know about:

  1. 1.Cost and pricing (you don’t have to give  specific costs, but at least address the question and give ranges if possible). Answer questions like “How much does bookkeeping really cost?”
  2. Problems and issues (these are the ones you’ve been asked about by prospects and clients). Along the lines of “My cash flow is low – how do I know if i have to let an employee go?”
  3. Vs and comparisons (i.e. What works best for small businesses wanting to grow – Quickbooks or Xero?
  4. Review (i.e. of a software or product or tool). Think about the good and bad points of a tool like Receipt Bank and share your thoughts.
  5. Best of… (i.e. what is the best x or y or z). If your clients are in construction, which are the best tools for quoting and time management?

Continue to build these based on the questions you receive. It’ll also give you a regular stream of content to keep your website fresh.

The key to good marketing is picking up on your target markets issues and pain points. Use the questions you get asked as insider intelligence and craft your content around these topics.

If you’re often asked about how to get started with Xero you could record some ‘how to videos’ and build into an email campaign. Draft some blogs posts around the video topics and share on social.  You could even pull the blogs into a pdf guide to add to your website as a lead magnet.

If you need guidance and want to start right now, check out our new Accelerator programme.