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Owning and operating a small business in today’s day and age is a feat in and of itself. Getting a small tax preparation office up on its feet is no simple achievement. Once this is accomplished, however, there’s always work to be done. Between maintaining operations, and growing the book of business, and other constant business activities. It won’t take long to discover the importance of building and maintaining a competitive edge that contributes to marketing strategies. A well-designed competitive edge will also differentiate your small tax preparation office from competitors.
There are many different ways to approach building a competitive edge. Focusing on a niche market, and optimizing services for that specific target-market is one tactic some businesses use. This enables the business to leverage a single target market, or target demographic. A firm can grow a book-of-business by focusing on up to a few niche target-markets at a time.
Alternatively, some companies focus on providing a wide variety of options at the lowest cost possible without too much concern regarding quality or longevity. In creating, adding to, and maintaining a competitive edge, it’s important to first identify what type of competitive differentiator makes the most sense for your small tax preparation office.
There should be a relatively formal process involved in choosing the services, and strategies your office is going to employ in order to compete in the saturated business landscape. This could entail a formal review of the company's current standings. The review should identify easy-to-seize opportunities, consider the specific expertise of the office staff, and include a detailed marketing break-down.
The marketing break-down could include a multitude of useful and insightful elements. To assist in identifying the company’s current position in the marketplace the review could naturally include a S.W.O.T. analysis. S.W.O.T stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. A very useful marketing tool.
Other aspects of the review could highlight current target-markets, growth opportunities (from the S.W.O.T. analysis), and analytics on both successful and not-so-successful campaigns.
With all of this data at the ready, tax office owners and management professionals can build informed, actionable plans backed by data. The actionable steps should, to some degree, also be measurable so that there is accountability for the strategies and tactics employed.
Keeping Your Small Tax Preparation Office Competitive
The services a small tax preparation office offers can play a big role in determining the type of competitive advantage the office builds into itself. The service-portfolio can also play a role in determining a company’s marketing strategies, and how they present themselves to the marketplace. A few tax-prep services that are growing in popularity, and will undoubtedly contribute to a stronger competitive advantage include, but aren’t limited to:
Refund Transfers: A refund transfer is the process through which a tax preparation office is paid for their services with a portion of the clients refund. This is convenient for both the customer and the tax-office. The convenience is two-fold: it offers the client more direct, and immediate, access to their funds; while offering the tax-office guaranteed payment for the services rendered.
With the growing demand for buy-now, pay-later payment methods, refund transfers are a natural service for a small tax preparation office to offer their clients. Not only is it a convenient service; but also can broaden the marketing strategy to include demographics with less discretionary income. Making the services at your tax preparation office more accessible than those who require upfront payments for tax-prep services.
Audit-Protection: Audit protection is a service that offers clients the option to receive assistance from a tax-expert in the case of an audit. While the chances for an audit remain relatively low; audit protection assures the client that they will have a tax-professional on their side, and ready to help in the case of an IRS inquiry.
These inquiries can be scary, overwhelming, and flooded full of incomprehensible tax-jargon. While it’s entirely possible an audit could eat up days-to-weeks of your time, audit protection significantly reduces this time-frame, and provides expert tax-advice from the get go.
One of the ‘selling’ features on audit-protection plans is their duration. An audit protection service will last for the entirety of an audit-window; meaning that the client will receive this tax-expert assistance for any audit conducted within the allowed timeframe. Meaning tax-payers can sleep easy, knowing their finances will be in good hands.
Refund Advances: Refund advances is another service your small tax preparation office can offer clients in order to add a competitive layer to their service-portfolio. Refund advances are slightly more uncommon, but because of that they can be considered a sort of ‘specialty’ type service.
This means that the customers who are looking for a refund advance, really won’t do their business with any office that doesn’t offer this service. Being able to provide a refund advance to the customers who seek it, once again, bolsters a book of business, and increases the potential target-market.
Refund advances are the process in which a customer takes out a loan from the tax-office for a portion of the refund that they’re owed. Normally these come with a few different tiers that carry different stipulations.
For example, most tax offices that offer refund advances can provide the first $500 of an advance without any fees, whereas any amount over that begins carrying a significant fee. It’s important for a tax office offering refund advances to be upfront about the fees associated with their tax refund advances.
Convenience: In the day of ‘instant gratification’, convenience is one of the strongest ‘marketing strategies’ that a company can employ. Prioritizing client time, convenience also brings customer experience to the forefront, which is one of the most impactful customer metrics in any business. Designing the office’s service-portfolio with convenience and customer experience in mind, is a sure-fire way to increase the competitive edge at your small tax preparation office.
Not only should convenience be built into the services offered, but customers should also have an easy and efficient way to communicate with the tax-professionals, and service-professionals in your tax office. Implementing a communication channel for customers to use is another ‘must’ for companies looking to stay competitive.
Refundo is here to help your small tax preparation office build a full suite of products and services. Our products and technology can build your company’s competitive edge, broaden your book of business, and ultimately set your office up for success.
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