Why customer experience makes a firm more competitive (and how to get it right)

We’re all customers of a product or service. And we’ve all had customer experiences - both good and bad. How many of us have cut ties with a brand because the customer experience was poor? Or switched to a different company because their reputation was better?

We know, first-hand, that customer experience matters. We’ve all made choices based on it, in our work and personal lives. So why isn’t our industry more attuned to how clients experience our firms?

I’ve got a few theories. For one, accountants have been trained to follow how things have always been done. The qualification doesn’t ask us to challenge, and a lot of the practice is retrospective - looking at what happened last month or last year - rather than looking ahead. Customer, or client, experience is also one of those fluffy concepts. Like brand, it’s intangible. And accountants are far more comfortable with concepts that are easy to define.

I’d also bet that most firms think more about what works for them than what works for their client base. Firms build systems for speed and efficiency. We’ve got deadlines to hit on behalf of clients, but we’re still taking the path of least resistance to get there - and asking ‘Could this be done better?’ requires reflection, time, and energy.

But by overlooking the customer experience, firms overlook an opportunity. It could even lose you business.