CPAs Get into Focus: Get Targeted Feedback to Align Supply with Demand
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY * A FOCUS GROUP CONSISTING OF clients and local business leaders can help a firm gather insights to manage practice development in a changing marketplace. It's important to set clear objectives, select participants who represent the market and choose a neutral facilitator. * FOCUS GROUPS REVEAL QUALITATIVE information--attitudes, opinions, feelings and perceptions--that other data collection methods may not provide. * THE CLIENT ADVISORY BOARD is the most common focus group format CPA firms use. It should represent a cross-section of newer and older clients. Most focus groups consist of eight to 12 participants. * PARTNERS DEFINE THE OBJECTIVES, which a marketing director or facilitator uses to formulate questions that target needed information. * A FIRM MAY CONDUCT ITS OWN sessions or hire an outside facilitator. Meetings should be held after business hours in the firm's boardroom or off-site at a hotel or conference center, away from workday distractions. * VIDEOTAPES OR AUDIOTAPES OF SESSIONS are used to write the follow-up report and add credibility for partners who may find certain client opinions hard to believe. Timely reporting on a session is a priority as is deciding how the firm will follow up. There's no need to guess or remain in the dark if you want marketplace opinions before rolling out new services or making firmwide changes. All you need to do is ask. "Discuss your firm's proposed service expansion with clients and business contacts and get feedback on how they feel about your providing those services," says Jacob Brandzel, CPA and American Express Financial Services managing director. Then use the resulting insights to reach mission-critical decisions about new strategic directions. CPA Lori Reiner did exactly that. The partner at Goldenberg Rosenthal LLP in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, asked a focus group made up of 15 local business leaders, "If you were being interviewed by Barbara Walters on 20/20, what would you say about the accounting profession?" The responses from this influential bunch--which included clients and nonclients--revealed not only what they thought about CPAs but also what they liked (and disliked) about Goldenberg Rosenthal. That information helped the firm direct its efforts. Focus group research reveals qualitative information--attitudes, opinions, feelings and perceptions--that other data collection and research methods may not provide. Participants share common characteristics such as use of the same products or services and/or a strong interest in a topic. Led by an in-house or a professional facilitator, a focus group aims to answer a set of specific questions--determined beforehand by one or more partners--of vital importance to a firm's planning process. HOW CPA FIRMS USE FOCUS GROUPS Amper Politziner & Mattia PA, a CPA firm with headquarters in Edison, New Jersey, also turns to its clients for insight and feedback. "We invite our major clients to our annual partners' meeting. We expect them to give us candid opinions and honest answers to questions about what they use us and don't use us for and what other services they need that we aren't providing," says senior partner Alfonse Mattia, CPA. "One of the biggest benefits is that we have discovered that our clients' perceptions of the firm sometimes are different from our own," he says. Firms can use focus groups for * Client input for strategic planning. The client advisory board is the most common focus group format that CPA firms use, says Michelle Golden, president of Golden Marketing Resources Inc., a St. Louis-based marketing consultant to CPAs. "A firm will rely on this group to aid its senior management or executive group in making important decisions," says Golden. To represent a cross-section of clients, a board should include both newer and older clients, but not individuals who use the firm only for personal taxes. …