Maximizing customer value with cross selling and personalized upselling: a guide for chartered accountants

Data collection and entry, account maintenance, financial statement preparation, tax and social declarations… The role of accountants is no longer limited to these tasks.
They are transitioning from “simple” accounting to a co-pilot role, supporting business leaders in their daily decision-making and project execution: anticipating obstacles, assisting with new tasks… in short, guiding them to avoid pitfalls and maximize the success of their projects.

In this context, mastering client data has become a major challenge for accounting firms.

With a deep understanding of their clients and their needs, accountants can now offer expanded and personalized services beyond mere accounting management. Personalized cross-selling and upselling allow firms to offer complementary or more advanced services tailored to each client’s specific needs while strengthening their role as trusted partners and adding value to businesses.

Cross-selling: an opportunity for accountants

While an accounting firm is small or has only a few clients, it’s relatively easy to know their needs and expectations. However, as the firm grows, new tools need to be deployed, and new entities are created to meet specific needs. External growth operations might also be conducted, thus diluting client knowledge.

Imagine you have a client as an accountant. Wouldn’t it be interesting for the HR team to have some knowledge of them to offer their services? The idea behind cross-selling is simple: offering clients complementary services to those they are already purchasing. The goal is to maximize the value of each client by meeting a broader range of their needs while strengthening client trust and loyalty.

We seek to break down data silos that form naturally, thus obtaining a consolidated view of the services offered to each client. Implementing a single client repository becomes particularly useful. More specifically, it helps:

• Consolidate data from your various tools
• Synchronize and improve the quality of your client information
• Provide a single access point to all services sold to your clients

Renaud LALUC

Senior Data Manager at data-major

“One of the main goals of implementing a single client repository is to better understand clients and their needs. This helps strengthen your position as a ‘trusted partner.’ The repository is therefore a tool for centralizing and optimizing client data management and improving their experience and operational efficiency while ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements.”

From a client’s perspective, firms will be able to provide better customer services from richer and more qualitative analyses. This, in turn, improves client retention by personalizing the relationship throughout the client’s journey, offering new services tailored to their needs, and providing advice that adds value to the client. These are essential elements to remain competitive in an increasingly customer-centric market.

Better client knowledge is also essential to ensure a firm’s proactivity. It allows personalized marketing campaigns based on client behavior: optimizing targeting and prioritizing commercial opportunities, which leads to improved lead conversion rates.

The client repository is part of a cycle: improved client knowledge, increased retention, enhanced experience, more effective prospecting, client satisfaction, further improved client knowledge, and so on.

Setting up a client repository involves several iterative steps:

• Setting a definition of “client”: their characteristics, associated elements (contacts, activities, addresses, interests, history, keywords describing them, etc.)
• Identifying business applications to consolidate and share: the more sources there are, the greater the cross-selling opportunities
• Defining management rules to achieve high data quality: validation, enrichment with external or institutional data providers, data sync, and consolidation.
• Integrating the data to make the most of the repository.

Based on our experience, the benefits of implementing a client repository for accounting firms are multiple:

• Personalization of services and financial advice based on the specific needs of each client
• Improved cross-selling: identifying trends and opportunities as well as unmet client needs
• Automation and simplification of administrative tasks, allowing accountants to focus on higher value-added activities
• Better risk management, ensuring greater traceability and transparency of client transactions and operations
• Centralization of client information by eliminating silos and maintaining accurate, up-to-date, and consistent information, reducing errors and inconsistencies
• Reduced time needed to search and verify information, thus improving process efficiency and lowering operational costs
• Compliance with data protection regulations, such as GDPR, by centralizing and securing client information.

This type of tool is relatively easy to deploy. As is often the case, the real issue lies elsewhere —in making sure change is properly managed. For example, these tools can be difficult to deploy because they mean sharing client portfolios or accepting not being the sole point of contact for a client. In that case, an alternative strategy can be implemented.

Personalized upselling: expanding service offerings based on client knowledge

Imagine being able to offer new services perfectly suited to your client’s needs thanks to in-depth knowledge of your client’s data. You can then offer them new services perfectly suited to their needs. For example, your cash flow has been increasing for six months, your stock has grown continuously while your turnover has remained the same…

The goal is no longer to remain in a “wait-and-see” situation where you wait for the end of the fiscal year to discuss the client’s needs. On the contrary, it is important to be proactive and let them know you are their co-pilot, you know their company’s current situation, and you can advise them. This is the essence of upselling.

Upselling consists of offering a client more advanced or complete service than what they are currently using, based on a deep understanding of their needs and expectations. The goal is to proactively meet their needs, while increasing the company’s revenue.

Unlike cross-selling, which involves offering complementary services, personalized upselling aims to offer greater value to the client by proposing more advanced or customized services. This approach strengthens the trust relationship with the client by demonstrating them you understand their needs and can offer tailored solutions.

Gauthier COPONAT

Consultant Manager at Oxtaam

As with cross-selling, the technique already answers the questions needed before launching an upselling strategy:

– Ability to connect to different sources to have a complete view of client activities

– Automatic data consolidation to focus on analysis and minimize the risk of errors

However, these technical elements often face a fundamental issue: data update. Too often, issues are brought to the table during year-end reviews. In recent year, automation (and soon the near-real-time data flows from electronic invoicing), has allowed for much more frequent updates. This makes it easier to be know via notification systems about changes in a client’s situation: for example, a KPI deteriorating and so on… From now on, upselling becomes an easier task. For example “Did your client’s situation worsen last month?” An automatic alert notifies you. You can then contact your client and offer advice to improve the situation.

In short, cross-selling and upselling strategies offer chartered accountants a unique opportunity to reinforce their role as trusted partners to their customers, while increasing their sales. To implement these strategies effectively, it is essential to master customer data. This can be achieved by better understanding the client’s portfolio using a tool such as the single client repository, or leveraging existing data on the client’s activity.

Artificial intelligence is the next big thing

Although implementing these tools may require change management within the firm, the long-term benefits for clients and the business are well worth the effort. Accountants can offer more comprehensive, personalized, and proactive services, responding to each client’s needs and strengthening trust.

With the surge of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, the possibilities of offering even more advanced and personalized services are increased. Accountants should seize this opportunity and position themselves as strategic partners to help their clients succeed in their projects.

Oxtaam – a pioneer in data exposure platforms: “At Oxtaam, we believe in democratizing access to data. Our platform puts the power of data in your hands, promoting relevance, simplicity, and scalability. Our “Self-service data for consumers” approach gives your teams and customers a unique opportunity to access data autonomously. Our solution adapts to your specific needs, right at the heart of your organization. Take control of your digital transformation with Oxtaam.”