If it is your business to provide services to others, you darn well better understand that you aren’t really doing so, unless you have paying clients. What you are doing is not even a hobby- it’s just a waste of time.

The job of an accountant or a lawyer is to (hopefully MORE than attempt) to solve their problems, to represent their interests, and to advise them to operate in a legal and profitable fashion. More importantly, we want our clients to be satisfied (better yet- thrilled) with our service provisions.

That last statement either has the client coming back for more- or referring us to other entities, thereby assuring that our own firm(s) remain profitable and viable. And, you can bet if clients are NOT satified, they will tell others- and that can be the death knell for the enterprise.

Understand that if you are providing legal services, there are going to be winners and losers to any litigation. (There are even winners and losers in a divorce- maybe even more pronounced than for general litigation practice, especially when children are involved.) And, if you are an accountant, the client may not be happy when you assure they pay their legally required (even if it’s the lowest possible amount of) taxes- or you need to educate them why a practice may not be dedutible against their profits.

The object of our business- and yours- is to clearly communicate why these results are merited. To communicate- throughout the process- how we are employing the best efforts to provide desired results. It’s why we need to have well-written client engagements and contract/fee agreements. No, the bar, the IRS, the state regulators don’t require these for all engagements, but we- as responsible and caring professionals- should consider them for each engagement.

Please don’t think I am suggesting those forty-one pages of gobbledygook that does nothing except annoy the client. Sometimes a one page explanation- fees, costs, reporting, point of contact- is all it takes. Some of our legal clients use separate formats for criminal and civil engagements; our family law clients have more involved forms when (which usually means always) there will be a contested divorce versus the preparation of a will or child support modifications. We use different forms for our CFO services, for accounting/bookkeeping, and for tax preparations.

(We do expect everyone to insure that a conflict check is effected- even more so if one thinks that this new potentially “small effort” doesn’t merit an engagement letter.)

There also is an expectation issue. We must anticipate- as well as manage- our clients’ expectations. As an example, we just had a client desire to set up an intial meeting. It eliminated all days of the week except for Mondays and Fridays. Of course, we currrently have engagements for Mondays, since our CFO activities typically need us on-site to set the tone and work effort for the week. And, our firm only works 1/2 days on Fridays, due to the Jewish Sabbath. Oh- and then the client decided it wanted to wait two months before we meet.

Our policy is that we don’t set one to two hour appointments beyond 30 days in advance. To insure that we don’t jeopardize any potentially larger (and more lucrative) engagements that may arise in the future. (We did suggest to the potential client above that they contact us when they actually ARE ready, and we could mutually determine if-how- and when things could proceed. It was not interested in that idea.) Needless to say, this potential client refused to understand that logic, blaming us for being non-responsive. Maybe we were to them- but we’d never satisfy them had we proceeded.

We also have a policy to return phone calls within 2 business days. (In practice, it’s closer to 2 hours- if the client leaves a message, and not just assumes [you do know what that really means, right?] we have a working caller ID.) Sometimes we have everyone assigned to clients in locations where phones and time zones don’t afford instant communication. But, we generally try to get the relevant professional on the phone immediately when a client calls- unless the professional(s) are already involved in a different client engagement.

That’s a policy (yours can be different) that should be explained to all clients. (We have the additional problem that some clients don’t understand that Rosh Hashana, Sukkot, Pesach, and the like are NOT business days. Even though we send out notices at least two weeks before those holidays to keep our clients informed.)

Or, sometimes, there are legal notice limits required. (This is more true for attorneys than accountants- unless we are dealing with a tax court issue.) Which means that the client’s desired time frame may not mesh with what is possible. Your client needs full information when that obtains.

It’s also a good idea to document every conversation and/or eMail with the client. Not just placing a record in the client file, but via the practice management solution we employ. We just had a case where it wasn’t a client satisfaction issue- but an investigation division of the Federal government that were determining if we (like our client) crossed the line. Our timely professional effort entries saved us further involvement with these regulators.

Remember it’s the little things that make the biggest difference. That’s why extraordinary and ordinary are just separated by that little bit extra.

These rules are posted right below our mission statement. They are its corollaries. You might want to adopt- or modify these- for your use.

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