Consider a Website as an, everyday, proactive business tool, to get it performing to it’s full potential!

There are countless, perfectly good Accountant websites that are consigned to the scrapheap because the owner thought the site didn’t deliver what they thought it would. Typically, it was designed to just give the firm a web presence and more importantly, to help generate business leads.

So if the above strikes a chord and your Website is proving a little disappointing, then we will attempt to give a balanced viewpoint why we, as Accountant Web Designers, feel it is important for you to understand the real advantages / benefits of owning a Website. Ultimately, it could save you a lot of wasted time and money. A fact you may already be well aware of.

It’s a simple case of recalibrating perceptions

Most Accountancy Firms tend to view a Website as just another form of advertising or a box that needs to be ticked. They don’t really expect their clients to use it, since, clients already know what services the firm offers, so what is the point of visiting (although, offering a Client Resource Area, goes part of the way to acheiving this).

Other than the above, website owners, generally, believe: the website has served it’s purpose; there is nothing more to be gained: and the Website has met it’s objectives (assuming Website objectives were set in the first place). They haven’t considered:

• Their website is, effectively, their Sales and Customer Service Teams, rolled into one i.e. it can easily take on some of the daily workload of these teams.
• It is, most likely, the only service related aspect of their business that is available 24/7 and always open for business.
• It can consistently put foward key business sales messages and continue to offer high levels of customer support, even after staff have left for the day.

After we have discussed our Accountant Website Design philosophy with a prospective client and explained how it could work in the context of their own accountancy firm (typically, during the pre-sales stage), many go onto to tell us, how rewarding and revealing the conversations proved to be. It leaves then feeling excited about the potential of their new Website. 

In fact, a well developed website is a terrific leveler and allows smaller accountancy firms to compete favourably with larger organisations, on the Internet, at least.

So, what does this translate into?

• Use the Website as a tool for bringing your accountancy practice closer to your clients.
• Give clients / visitors reasons to visit the website again and again i.e. client resources, such as, Tax Tables, HMRC Forms, Helpsheets (why not check out our Website Content for Accountants service).
• Operate a Blog/Insights and comment on breaking news stories. Encourage clients to visit the blog in the first instance, to keep up-to-date on articles that should be of interest to them, saving the time of having to address clients individually. Prompt interaction by encouraging them to comment on blog posts.
• Run client surveys and gain valuable feedback from the client base.
• Intelligent enquiry forms – capture essential information about prospective clients, their business structure, turnover and requirements, helping the firm qualify leads before making contact.
• Automated lead qualification – use guided questionnaires to direct prospective clients towards the most appropriate services or packages, saving time on initial consultations.
• Online appointment booking – allow prospective and existing clients to book consultations, reviews and meetings directly from your site.
• Make clients feel important by creating a members only area on the website or by making some blog posts, member only.
• Adopt a more professional approach for transferring files to and from clients, by operating an integrated File Sharing Portal
• Significantly reduce the time spent answering  repetitive questions, by creating a Frequently Asked Question section on the Website. Give visitors information when they need it and not when the business want to give it.
• Consider running a Helpdesk system, to help monitor enquiries coming into your accountancy firm, especially from the client base. Share the same view of Support Tickets.
• For example, if staff are working remotely from home, reflecting contemporary business practices, making it difficult to keep track of who has responded to what, a Helpdesk system could be the simplest and most cost effective solution.
• Interact with website visitors in real time, by operating a Live Chat facility. Use it as another customer support option.
• Consider an Ecommerce facility for the website, to help speed up payments.
• Encourage potential new staff members to leave their details, giving you a good starting point when looking for new staff and possibly reducing your recruitment costs at the same time.
• Significantly improve lead generation, by writing compelling content on all services i.e. each page should be able to stand alone and give solid reasons why the visitor should contact the business.
• Include all sales literature on the Website as PDFs, to speed up sales cycles and save on postage.
• Thinking out of the box, consider running a free, local Business Directory to encourage potential clients to the website, giving a legitimate excuse to subsequently contact them.
• Use the Website as the focal point of all marketing initiatives.
• If your website is very popular, why not consider offering advertising space and let it help generate additional revenue.

In Summary

A Website is a terrific lead generator but is much more than that. It has the ability to reduce admin costs, improve customer service, streamline business processes and help make business processes more efficient. It wants to become and has the ability to become: an invaluable, everyday, proactive business tool. The Firm just needs to keep asking itself: can the website help, can the website do this better?