The winner of the 2016 Practice Excellence Award for Client Service Firm of the Year tells Kevin Reed how the firm translates good ideas into day-to-day practice.
Andrew Rhodes has every reason to be satisfied.
As managing partner of Sobell Rhodes - the Sobell coming from joint founder and senior partner Melvyn Sobell - Rhodes has added to the practice’s bulging trophy cabinet.
The Sobell Rhodes entry to the 2016 Client Service Firm of the Year award convinced the judges that clients are at the heart of how the firm works. The team firm’s philosophy goes beyond a mission statement in glossy marketing materials and sets a tone for team members that translates through to its processes and workflow.
For those wondering whether Sobell Rhodes just has good awards copywriters, the firm has grown from 32 to 40 staff in the past seven months, while fees and new client number are up by double digits.
“Winning is a big morale booster for the whole team,” says Rhodes.
The award, and others picked up in recent years, are a far cry from 21 years ago, when Messrs Sobell and Rhodes decided to make a break from their previous firm.
Without disparaging that practice, the pair wanted to do things differently.
Outstanding goal
They weren’t interested in the passive, compliance-based service many firms offered. Instead, their goal was to deliver outstanding client service, and engender a warm and friendly – caring – attitude towards staff and clients.
“The idea was one of a public service commitment, which we set out at the beginning. And we haven’t changed one word of that,” he explains.
Clearly, such a broad commitment needs to be backed by the day-to-day details. And that detail is a list of practical tenets, such as
- “Return calls in one day”
- “Meet all deadlines”; and
- “No surprise fees”.
These tenets are help instil the culture into working practices to carry the theory of good client service into daily activities.
Equally fundamental to the firm’s success is its strategic aim to provide high-value consulting and advisory services to clients – to go beyond compliance. This commitment has also remained resolutely in place during the firm’s 21 years.
“Accounts and tax work is bread and butter – and increasingly under threat in terms of margin,” says Rhodes. “To get consulting and advisory work, we appeal to clients who are much more entrepreneurial.”
How to do it – the Sobell Rhodes way
So what does Sobell Rhodes do in practice to drive its success? The answer lies in a long list of things that dovetail with both its service commitment and strategic aim.
Questionnaires – and the feedback - are vital. Prospective clients are asked about their personal aims. From this, Sobell Rhodes can gauge the types of service they and their business will need over the longer term. This, Rhodes says, is critical to planning the application of high-value services.
Then it’s more feedback. This time from the team itself. Monday morning “awesome service meetings” flag up top performance – and areas for improvement.
Sobell Rhodes has moved into a new, open-plan office that encourages communication and teamwork, Rhodes believes. “Siloeing” clients is curbed by business development heads who assign a lead partner to clients based on their needs; the work can pass to different partners and teams as the clients’ needs change.
To manage clients and their ongoing needs requires good systems. Sobell Rhodes launched its own IT division when it formed. The team provides in-house support, and further earns its crust by supplying a full range of small business technology services to clients: from networking, to hardware and software support.
Tech seems central to Rhodes’s thinking and the practice’s operation. When a “cost” or a “client need” is identified, the firm will invest in a solution - and will often generate new fee income as the new system is implemented by clients.
For example, as clients expressed a need for more forward-facing financial information, Sobell Rhodes started recruiting more CIMA-qualified accountants. Supported with good reporting systems, these management accountants are providing CFO-style services to a a growing portion of the firm’s client base.
Small but perfectly agile
Smaller firms might lack the ambition to offer more, but their agility puts them at a great advantage to evolve, Rhodes argues.
“I don’t think they’ve quite grasped the way things are going – the driving down of cost of routine work of producing accounts. It’s an opportunity to provide much more in the way of advisory,” he says.
Good, smaller firms are embracing cloud technology to provide an efficient accounting service. But, are they extracting value through broader services, Rhodes asks rhetorically.
The whirlwind introduction of quarterly tax reporting through the Making Tax Digital regime is not popular within the profession, but Rhodes thinks the closer client communication required by MTD will benefit those willing to take advantage of the opportunity.
In his view, MTD will polarise the profession between those providing commoditised compliance and those offering a broader range of services.
However, practices that continue to focus on compliance services without embracing new technology solutions could miss out on both of these options.
“Historically the psychology of accountants is about being precisely accurate rather than roughly right, so they loathe advisory offerings. But we offer a complete advisory solution – our offering is about relationships.”
Kevin Reed is a freelance journalist
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Replies (8)
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"And that detail is a list of practical tenets, such as
•“Return calls in one day”
•“Meet all deadlines”; and
•“No surprise fees”.
Surely that is the expected norm - it is nothing to praise yourselves about and any client of any practice who does not receive such service is with the wrong accountant.
Thank you for responding and your feedback.
I agree with you that every client should expect this level of service. In addition we have a number of other service commitments that we pledge to maintain.
However, the challenge for us and I suspect many firms is to have systems which ensure that every person in the firm adheres to these standards consistently.
Interesting idea to launch your own tech department - but what are the PII implications?
Hi, Shaya
Our IT department operates from a separate company with it's own PII cover. We maintain similar quality control systems as our main practice.
Hope that answers your question adequately.
Many thanks
Extract above
'They weren’t interested in the passive, compliance-based service many firms offered. Instead, their goal was to deliver outstanding client service, and engender a warm and friendly – caring – attitude towards staff and clients'.
I would not be to caring, some clients will be calling you at least 3 times a week and then there are meetings. Good point about staff, so partners see staff as the enemy.
Thanks Andrew for your feedback.
We find very few of our clients abuse the service we offer but I agree it can happen.
Thanks for your comment about the frequent division between partners and staff.
Interesting article. I've been reading a lot recently about "deep work" and the concept of distraction and concentration. Open plan offices is a nice idea but do they create more interruptions and distractions where as it is far better to be deeply concentrated and produce a better quality output. It is far more rewarding to work for one hour solid on a particular client case for example than to chop and change every 5 minutes.
Hi Keith
Thanks for your comments.
We also were worried about open plan offices when we went over to this way of working 9 months ago. I'm pleased to say that it's been far less disruptive than we anticipated and we have 5 break out areas/meeting places which people use when they want to work solely or in small groups.