Customer Insights Flashcards
How do people do it right now (before your solution)?
Right now, accounting firms mostly guess on client satisfaction. They might use feedback surveys, but with a low response rate and skewed results.
On client profitability and work efficiency - some use timesheet which give some indication, but they often miss the time invested in client interactions, which can be a significant part of a person’s workload, especially as they gain seniority.
Who needs what you’re making?
Busy leaders and managers of accounting firms – especially those with 15+ employees – need our solution.
How do you know customers need what you’re making?
I saw this first-hand from my time in accounting & finance – it’s a real pain point with no solution. But we also did more than 150 Accounting interviews since the beginning October
Why people will use our product?
Every owner we’ve talked to voluntarily said they want to use the product because they have insights they never see before and currently don’t have a solution to grasp a good measure of client satisfaction and profitability.
Why do the reluctant ones hold back?
Some owners and managers worry it’ll feel like micromanagement at first. That’s understandable, but once they see how it actually helps them focus on improving work efficiency and client satisfaction, they’re usually on board.
What has surprised you about user behaviour?
For us, we found it crazy how little visibility firms have into whether their clients are actually happy. They’re focused on the work, but miss the big picture of the client relationship.
What feedback mechanism do you have in place to ensure continuous product improvement based on user experience and needs?
We talk to users and potential ones weekly, record / rank feedback, and analyze the data to identify patterns. This lets us prioritize improvements will have the biggest positive impact.
Conversion rates through your funnel?
- 5% positive response rate
- 3.5% discovery call
- 75% conversion from discovery call to demo
- 30% from demo are users
- 30% are in process to get users in the near future
- 40% say they would like more time to think / or onboard at a later stage
Why accounting industry first?
We chose the accounting industry because it has a high client interactions volume and numerous small firms of 10+ employees, making it ideal for Combinely.
Accountants deal with a ton of clients, with juniors handling around 30 and partners usually above 150, making it nearly impossible to see at a glance which client is unhappy or unprofitable. Additionally, there is a large number of small accounting firms compared to investment banking boutique for instance, offering a larger, more accessible customer base for Combinely.
You did 150 interviews but only 4 paying customers? What went wrong?
We started to work togheter in October, interviewing every personas within the accounting industry - which was a mistake as we were not niche enough and realise this right after our first YC rejection. But since December, we’ve pivoted to focus on managers and leaders in accounting firms and their strongest pain point around client profitability and satisfaction.
The accounting ‘busy season’ from January, when we had an early MVP ready, to now really, slowed our customer acquisition plus we’re currently building for Gmail, which has smaller market penetration than Outlook. That are the main reasons, but we’re very confident in our new direction and have a strong pipeline of interested potential customers.
What is the problem?
Right now, accounting firms are flying blind on client satisfaction and struggle to get an accurate measure of client profitability and team efficiency. Meaning leaders don’t know if a client is unhappy, until he leaves, and have no idea how much time gets poured into client interactions.
Through my own experience and talking to over 100 accountants, that’s a clear challenge to growth. As firms scale, leaders can’t be everywhere, and maintaining the personal touch while taking on more clients becomes a major challenge. That’s where we believe we can bring value.
Break down 150 to 4
We interviewed 100 unique accountants (including 50 firm owners) across 150 conversations. Notably, 15 firm owners, our target segment, used Gmail. All four of our paying customers come from this core group.
- 26% user / 38% in process / 38% say no
- 150 interviews with 100 different accountants
- 55 junior or independent / 45 leaders or managers
- 2/3 (30) Outlook 1/3 Gmail (15)
What is the reason 40% didn’t convert in to customers?
A:
The two main reasons are integration and security.
Details:
First, some potential customers were too busy setting up other software and didn’t want to overload their systems. Additionally, some companies use email systems we don’t currently support, like Google Groups or Freshdesk. On the security side, some companies have strict SOC 2 compliance requirements. We’re actively working on achieving SOC 2 certification and improving client interaction integrations to address these concerns.
How do you solve profitability
Right now - accountants assess client profitability through timesheets. The majority of accounting firms are moving out of them as their output is as good as their input, which is manual and most of the time innacurate as often miss client interactions time. Emails, calls – a big part of every accountant’s day, specially as you get senior.
Combinely wants to bridge this gap and analyse client interaction volume & nature, helping accountants with smarter decisions on pricing and profitability. To put this in context, every one of our customers found a client that was more demanding than they expected. That insight they didn’t have before and which will impact repricing.It’s what we say to accountants, just one data-driven repricing can boost a firm’s bottom line, and make Combinely worth it.
What are you building
We are building software for accounting firms to turn every client interaction into actionable insights for improving client satisfaction and profitability. We do that by analysing client email interactions and using AI to extract key information to identify everything from who their most demanding clients are, to who is at risk of churning.
How do you solve client satisfaction
Right now, accounting firms mostly guess on client satisfaction. They might use feedback surveys, but with a low response rate and skewed results. We believe client interactions are the starting point to get to know client satisfaction. We extract key information from them, and identify from who are the happier clients to who are at risk of churning.
This helps accounting firms to proactively address client concerns or on the opposite end of the spectrum, ask for referral and google review. And that’s key as, referrals for instance, is the best & cheapest source of growth in the accounting industry.
Top accountant tasks?
- Bookkeeping: so recording financial transactions
- Tax preparation and filing
- Financial statement preparation: such as balance sheets and income statements
- Payroll processing: ensuring employees are paid accurately and on time, and that all required taxes and withholdings are submitted
- Financial consulting: financial advice and guidance to clients on various topics, such as budgeting, forecasting, and investment planning.
