Do you know how clients really feel about you?
Did you know most accounting and bookkeeping practices grow through word of mouth rather than digital marketing?
In fact, 69% of SMBs find their accountant through referrals, and 9 out of 10 accounting firms say they rely on referrals as their main source of new clients. It stands to reason that referrals aren’t a side quest for accountants who want to gain new leads, but in fact the most important channel to focus our sales and marketing efforts.
While pricing, specialisms, and service scope all influence a client’s initial decision, they’re rarely what determines loyalty and repeat business. What matters most is their experience of working with you, and how satisfied they feel with that experience. This shapes whether a client chooses you in the first place, stays with you over time, and confidently recommends your practice to others.
So, if referrals drive growth, and client satisfaction is what drives referrals, then client satisfaction isn’t an optional metric for accountants and bookkeepers. To maximise your referral potential you need a system that helps you identify what’s working well and where friction exists. This looks like regular measurement of client satisfaction, and collecting and (most importantly) acting on feedback, so you know exactly what to improve and where to focus.
Why feedback is the clearest signal of client satisfaction
You may already know who your happiest clients are because they’re the ones who proactively share feedback and recommend you to others. These are valuable relationships, but they only tell part of the story. Without direct insights from the rest of your clients, you’re often left guessing how they feel. Low satisfaction can surface indirectly through delayed responses, missed deadlines, or friction around payment, without making the underlying issues clear.
Client feedback gives you a fuller picture, particularly from less-satisfied clients whose unspoken frustrations reveal missed opportunities to improve. These insights are often the most valuable, helping you strengthen relationships and retain more clients.
Asking for feedback doesn’t need to be complex to be effective. By choosing one or two well-timed questions, acting visibly on what you learn, and staying consistent in how you collect and use feedback, you can turn it into a practical tool for improvement.
What is customer satisfaction for an accounting practice?
For accountants and bookkeepers, the level of your client satisfaction is shaped by the impact you have on your client’s business, influenced by many factors that might include:
- your responsiveness to their questions,
- the frequency of your communication,
- clarity of explanations and advice,
- the perceived accuracy and reliability of the work delivered,
- and how your practice helps them make better financial decisions.
Customer satisfaction is best measured in a systematic way, using metrics like CSAT (Client Satisfaction Score), NPS (Net Promoter Score), and CES (Client Effort Score) which help you understand how client's experience your firm.
Instead of relying on assumptions, these measurement tools give you clear data to work with, helping you refine services, strengthen retention, and build a more trusted brand. For example, you might reveal a service you believe is a major value-add is actually confusing or underused, while something you consider routine might be what clients appreciate most.
Benefits of measuring customer satisfaction for accountants and bookkeepers
With the right insights you can improve processes for your clients, strengthen relationships, and build a practice that grows steadily because clients feel genuinely supported.
Basically, consistently measuring and acting on customer satisfaction sets your practice up for growth, opening up the opportunity for long term benefits including:
- Protecting your profitability by revealing clients with hidden dissatisfactions or expectations.
- Surfacing unhappy clients early (before renewals or busy seasons) to reduce churn.
- Revealing client insights so you can perfect your pricing and services.
- Finding your happy clients that can’t wait to share positive reviews and testimonials.
Built-in CSAT surveys in Socket are designed to make this process simple and low-effort, so practices can understand how clients really experience their service without adding complexity to existing workflows.
What to do with negative feedback
As you can see, measuring customer satisfaction isn’t only about gathering all your nice feedback.
The true value comes from the uncomfortable bit, the negative or constructive feedback. By uncovering hidden issues and gaps in expectations you find the data you need to improve.
Aim to always treat negative feedback as data instead of a criticism, and you gain a valuable resource for making smart decisions that actually improve your clients' experience. This mindset shift creates a higher standard over time, and your practice will attract attention even in a competitive market.
How to measure customer satisfaction
Once you’ve decided to start measuring client satisfaction, the next step is choosing a simple, reliable way to measure it.
You don’t need long surveys or complicated reports. Most accounting practices can get powerful insights from just one core metric, CSAT. However, there are two other metrics, NPS or CES, that you may want to add into the mix at a later stage.
1. Client Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
CSAT tells you how happy a client is with a specific interaction or piece of work. It’s most useful when initiated at defined moments in your workflow, because it shows exactly where client experience is strong and where it dips.
The typical question is "How satisfied were you with the service you received?" with a scoring system of 1-5 or 1-10.
Best used after:
- Year-end accounts
- Tax return completion
- Payroll setup
- Advisory projects
Why CSAT works for accountants and bookkeepers:
CSAT directly measures how satisfied clients are with the service they receive, making it ideal for trust-based, outcome-driven work like accounting and bookkeeping. It remains reliable for smaller practices and provides clear, actionable feedback without overcomplicating the process.
2. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
NPS measures your client’s loyalty, predicting retention, referrals, and how clients talk about your firm to their peers.
The typical question is "How likely are you to recommend our firm to a friend or colleague?" with a scoring system 0-10.
You then categorise your clients by the score they gave, and the average score becomes your NPS rating. The client categories are:
- Promoters (scored 9–10): Loyal, enthusiastic, and likely to refer.
- Passives (scored 7–8): Content but not excited.
- Detractors (scored 0–6): At risk of leaving or spreading negative feedback.
To calculate NPS, subtract the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters (Passives are not part of the final calculation). The result is your Net Promoter Score, which shows how loyal and referral-ready your client base really is.
Drawback of NPS: The direct wording of NPS can seem ideal for gauging the referral potential of a client, however, it’s not the most reliable measurement for smaller practices. NPS is a percentage based calculation which means it can be unreliable with smaller feedback numbers - if you’re surveying a handful of clients, just one low rating can throw your overall NPS score off.
3. Client Effort Score (CES)
CES measures how easy it is for your clients to work with your practice. If clients feel like every step takes too much effort, then their satisfaction and retention rate falls fast.
The typical question starts with "How easy was it to”. For example you might ask "How easy was it to work with our firm?" with a scoring system of 1-5 or 1-7.
Measures friction in:
- Onboarding
- Document uploads
- Communication tools
- Response turnaround
There isn’t a universally standardised scoring system like CSAT or NPS, so regardless of the question or scale you choose CES = Average of all responses. There’s no “promoter–detractor” model like NPS, you simply track whether the average moves up or down over time.
A low CES often points to process problems rather than service quality issues, giving you a practical roadmap for improvement.
Drawback of CES: CES focuses on ease, not outcomes. In accounting and bookkeeping, a process can feel easy while still leaving a client unhappy with the advice, accuracy, or result. This makes CES a narrow metric that struggles to reflect true client satisfaction in long-term, trust-based relationships.
How to get started with collecting customer satisfaction
Sending a survey is the quickest and easiest way to collect data from multiple clients, however, mixing methods could give you richer insights and keeps feedback fresh rather than repetitive.
Pre-Built Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Short surveys that can be sent after key milestones gives you consistent, comparable data without manual effort of setting up new workflows. You can also use tools like Socket CSAT, a core feature to all Socket users. This built-in feedback tool let you:
- Collect structured feedback
- Gather testimonials
- Track trends over time
Quarterly Mini Check-Ins
A personalised and simple email with 2–3 questions opens the door to honest, low-effort feedback:
- What’s working well?
- What could we improve?
- Is there anything you need more clarity on?
One-on-one conversations
Some clients won’t write things in an email, but they’ll happily tell you in a call.
This is especially useful for high-value or long-term clients. Simply add a couple of structured questions within your regular reviews or meeting can help you uncover:
- Hidden frustrations
- Expectations that shifted
- New needs or opportunities
Emails and 1-1 conversations can work well for smaller practices that rely on relationship-building as a strength, you just need to remember to capture and act on the feedback!
Common mistakes to avoid
Even well-meaning practices stumble here. The most common pitfalls include:
- Asking for feedback but never acting on it.
- Over-surveying clients until they tune you out.
- Only measuring at year-end or at renewal, when it’s too late to fix anything.
- Focusing only on scores rather than the comments behind them.
Turning feedback into action
Feedback only matters if it changes something! If you don’t act on feedback as soon as possible, you risk upsetting clients and losing the opportunity of more feedback in the future. Show your clients you’re listening by turning data into improvements with this simple loop:
- Identify recurring issues
Look for patterns rather than one-off comments. - Prioritise based on client impact
Fix what affects the most amount of clients or the most important clients. - Assign ownership
Share responsibilities with someone on your team so improvements don’t fade away. - Communicate changes to clients
Let them know you listened. This builds trust instantly. - Retest satisfaction levels
Check-in to see if the changes improved their experience.
Customer satisfaction is measurable, repeatable, and directly linked to the health of your accounting or bookkeeping firm. When you track it consistently and act on what clients tell you, you build a practice that improves year after year, and clients feel the difference.
Ready to get started with Socket’s native CSAT tool? Sign up for your 14 day free trial now.
