1. ADP LUNCH & LEARN CPE PROGRAM “Understanding Client Behavior: What You Need to Know ” Based on a program by: John Burnett, Prof. of Marketing, Univ. of Denver Adapted for CPE accreditation by SmartPros Ltd. (
NOTE: The following text, for all slides, is adapted from the video transcript.
INTRODUCTION:
Welcome, my name is ____________ and today we’re going to talk about Understanding Client Behavior.
This course was designed by SmartPros, a leader in providing CPE credits to accountants. In the event you have any questions that fall outside my area, I’ll be more than happy to reach out to SmartPros to follow up for you.
Although the content was created by SmartPros, this topic is relevant to my current role at ADP. Understanding client behavior is one of the key necessities for me to generate new business from potential and existing clients.
Insert Personal Example of how this presentation has helped you with your job in sales.
Ex. This year, I’ll convince 77 clients to come aboard ADP. This presentation has sharpened my selling skills to understand why clients would make a decision to come to ADP.
Many of the accountants I work with have benefited from our program. I’m hoping you’ll feel the same.
Let’s get started.
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2. The discussion is broken down into four areas:
Overview
Segment Overview: Today we are going to discuss how and why potential clients would use your services.
The discussion is broken down into four areas:
Client Behavior and Exchange
Relational Marketing
Client Behavior as Problem Solving
Six Steps in the Decision Process
Following today’s presentation:
Review of Program Reference Material
Completion of Course on
Print CPE Certificate
Segment Overview:
1. Review Segment Overview and Topics for Discussion
2. Highlight the following point:
In today's competitive environment, accountants - as well as other professional service providers - must understand what motivates their clients to purchase their particular services. This course is an introduction to the process of client decision making, with a focus on attitudes and motivations that influence the client. In this segment, we explain what you need to know about creating client "needs" and satisfying client "wants" in the marketplace.
3. Outline the Next Steps

3. Understand what factors influence clients in the decision process.
Objectives
Course Objectives: Upon successful completion of this segment, participants should be able to:
Describe how clients and service providers assess relative trade-offs in the marketplace.
Understand what factors influence clients in the decision process.
Review Objectives from slide

4. I. Client Behavior and Exchange
Professional Services
Do you think you can create a "need“ for your services?
How do you identify who needs/wants your services?
- concentrate on a specific population
- understand your target market
- get to know “them”
Determine who makes purchasing decision
Is the individual acting on behalf of:
Self
Organization
Customer = Consumer = Client
Let’s discuss client behavior and exchange.
Say: Think about this question.
Do you think you can you create a "need" for your services?
Answer: Although it is generally accepted that you cannot literally create a need for accounting and other professional services, we all know the need exists. Our job is to uncover those needs.
Say: The question becomes:
How do you identify who needs/wants your services?
Answer: One suggestion is to identify the particular portion of the population that already needs your service, separate them from the rest, and concentrate on marketing directly to them. This requires that you understand and know a great deal about "them.“
Provide a personal example. Ie. You target restaurants for payroll services. (FICA Tip Reporting)
Say: Determine who makes the purchasing decision.
Even when working with a business, corporation, or organizations, it is still a person inside that company who makes the decision to retain you. Although the concept of "client" is used in the accounting industry rather than the more common term "consumer," they are the same.

5. I. Client Behavior and Exchange, Continued
Market Exchange
Relationship between service provider and potential client
Allows both parties to:
- Assess relative trade-offs they must make to satisfy needs and wants
Service providers often have formal
Policies
Objectives
(Example: Accountant may only engage in exchanges
when profit margin is 10% or higher)
Clients may have personal policies and objectives
May not be formalized
May not understand what prompts them to
behave in a particular manner
The relationship between the client and the service provider exists through a phenomenon called a market exchange. The exchange process allows the two parties to assess the relative trade-offs they must make to satisfy their respective needs and wants.
What becomes important is to assess these trade-offs. Service providers often have formal policies and objectives.
Example: An accountant may only engage in exchanges when its profit margin is 10 percent or greater.
Keep in mind, the client also has personal policies and objectives that guide their responses in an exchange. Unfortunately, clients seldom write down their personal policies and objectives.
Even more likely, the client doesn’t often understand what prompts them to behave in a particular manner.
Obviously, clients are essential partners in the exchange process. Without them, exchanges would stop.

6. I. Client Behavior and Exchange, Continued
The Marketplace
Clients control the marketplace because they have:
a. Free choice
b. Competitive offerings to choose from
Marketplace consists of potential clients with
a. Needs
b. Wants
c. Purchasing power to satisfy needs and wants
Key Questions
How do potential clients make purchase decisions?
What factors influence clients in the decision process?
Review text from slide
Understanding how clients arrive at these decisions allows you to build
an attractive offering.

7. II. Relational Marketing
The Nature of How You View Potential Clients Must Change
Modern technology is transforming choice
Choice is transforming the marketplace
This new technological push is programmability.
Programmability Allows Accountants to Offer
More variety
More choices
Accountants and clients can design and implement the “program” that will yield
the prescribed product, service or variety that best suits their needs.
Implications of Programmability
Clients have many choices
Choice is often made on the basis of loyalty
Loyalty is created from strong relationships
Let's move on to the concept of relational marketing.
Review text from slide.
FYI: Example of programmability when relating the concept to computers.
In a computer chip, programmability means the capability to alter a command so that the chip can perform a variety of prescribed functions and produce a variety of prescribed outcomes.
Technology has created the promise of “anything, anyway, anytime.”

8. II. Relational Marketing, Continued
Accountants Must Build Relationships With
1. Clients
2. Referral sources
3. Software providers and other suppliers
4. People with influence
5. Members of financial community
Accountants Must Learn Their Customers'
1. Beliefs
2. Interests
3. Attitudes
4. Self-images
Misreading these characteristics may cause
mistaken assumptions that will result in the loss of the sale.
Review section on Building Relationships.
Provide specific examples of your relationships and influence sources.
Example: Bankers, Accountants, Networking Groups, etc

9. III. Client Behavior as Problem Solving
Client behavior can be the combination of efforts and results related to the client's need to solve problems.
Client Problem Solving
Triggered by identification of an unmet "need"
Physical
Psychological
Solved by understanding the criteria of how you "want" to fulfill that need
Successful Marketing Is Based on:
Creating wants
Satisfying needs
* Although the difference is a subtle one, there is some
benefit in distinguishing between a client's needs and wants.
Let's look at client behavior as problem solving.
Review text on slide.
Examples of unmet needs:
1. A husband and wife have just relocated. They realize that the deadline for filing their tax return is approaching and they do not have a local accountant.
2. The local gas station and auto body shop expresses dissatisfaction with their present accountant.
These scenarios present problems that need to be solved.
A "need" is a basic deficiency given a particular situation. A "want" is placing certain personal criteria as to how that need must be fulfilled.

10. III. Client Behavior as Problem Solving, Continued
Client Decision Making Can Be:
Complex or Simple
Complex
First-time purchase of product
High-priced, long-lasting or infrequently purchased services
Example: Life Insurance
Simple
Repeat purchases
Routine products and services
Example: Personal tax return with few changes each year
Simple Decision Making Becomes Complex with Change in:
1. Price
2. Product or service
3. Quality
Review text from slide.
Example:
Complex: Convincing a manual payroll processor to outsource
Simple: Convincing a business owner who already outsources the payroll to change payroll companies

11. IV. Six Steps in the Decision Process
Need Identification
Information Search and Processing
Identification and Evaluation of Alternatives
Product/Service/Outlet Selection
Purchase
Post-Purchase Behavior
Review this point:
The key to understanding client behavior is built into a six-part decision process. Once the process is started, a potential client can withdraw at any stage or make the actual purchase. The tendency for a person to go through all six stages is likely only in certain buying situations.
Let’s review each step in more detail.

12. IV. Step 1: Need Identification
The process starts when an unsatisfied need or motive creates tension.
Identification of Unsatisfied Need
1. Internal: Anxiety, perhaps from experiencing a problem
2. External: Seeing an advertisement
Unsatisfied Need Recognition
1. Creates recognition of the need
2. Requires the need to be defined
Need is Resolved Depending on:
1. Magnitude of discrepancy between “Have” & “Need”
Ex: I “have to have” a new Cadillac. I “need” a new car.
2. Importance of the problem
* Need recognition process is often a function of the type of information
we receive and how we perceive it. This is where a need becomes a want.
Say the following introduction:
Whether complex or simple, the first step is need identification. Everyday we face many consumption problems.
Some of these are routine, such as filling our automobile with gasoline, or buying lunch. Other problems occur infrequently, such as purchasing computer systems.
Review text from slide
The above helps to determine:
Is it important enough to proceed to next step?
If not, will decision process be abandoned?

13. IV. Step 2: Information Search and Processing
The potential client may seek information to help identify and
evaluate alternative products, services, and outlets that will
meet the need.
Clients Receive Information from
1. Family
2. Friends
3. Personal observation
4. Competitors
5. Better Business Bureau
6. Advertising
7. Mass media
Clients Rely on Information from
1. Past favorable purchases
2. Past unfavorable purchases
Past Favorable Purchases Lead to
1. Brand loyalty
2. Store loyalty
Example: Client will return to their accountant on an annual basis for tax preparation.
Review text from slide
Provide personal examples where applicable.

14. IV. Step 2: Information Search and Processing, Continued
Information Search Can Identify New Needs
Involves:
a. Physical
b. Mental activity
Requires:
a. Time
b. Energy
c. Money
Once the search is complete, how do they process the information?
Five Points to Consider for Information Processing
1. Exposure to stimulation (receiving direct mail)
2. Pay attention to stimulus (opening the direct mail)
3. Perception of incoming signals (understanding the offering)
4. Retention and storage of information (direct mail is appealing)
5. Retrieval and application of information (responding to the call of action)
Say: While a potential client searches for information, a new need may be identified.
Example:
As one looks for tax return assistance, he or she may decide that taxes are not the real problem. The need is for better financial controls or financial planning. At this point, their perceived need may change, triggering a new informational search.
When the search actually occurs, what do people do with the information? How do they spot, understand, and recall information? In other words, how do they process information?
Review the five points to consider for information processing and the example provided.

15. IV. Step 3: Identification and Evaluation of Alternatives
Identification of Alternatives Are Influenced by:
Time and money costs
Existing information
Downside risk
Predisposition to particular choice
How do clients choose among competing services?
Evaluation of Alternatives Are Based on Attitudes
- What we know
- What we feel
- How we act
Change in Attitudes Can Lead to Change in Behavior
a. Situation/Service-specific
The search for alternatives and the methods used in the search are influenced by several factors. Review points from slide.
Example of predisposition to a particular choice: A controller who used another service bureau in their last position.
Once people know their alternatives, how do clients choose among competing service providers?
Evaluation of alternatives is based on attitudes. Attitudes range from negative to positive. An attitude is based on what we know, feel and how we act. A change in attitudes can lead to a change in behavior.
If it is possible to change what people believe about a service provider, it is equally possible that their feelings and their actions may eventually change as well.
Example: If someone has a very strong interest in saving for retirement, then that the person may lean towards a tax adviser with knowledge of pension and benefit-savings incentives.
We do not react to products or services in isolation. The situation, or our attitude toward the situation, plays an important role in how well attitudes predict behavior. Since attitudes do influence buying behavior, service providers want to know how they can bring their offerings and clients' attitudes into a consistent state. That is, into a situation where a prospective client evaluates a given product or service as satisfying his or her needs.

16. IV. Step 3: Identification and Evaluation of Alternatives, Continued
Service Providers Have Two Choices to Create a Potential Shift in Attitudes:
1. Change client’s attitude to be consistent with your service
2. Change service offering to match client’s attitude
Modifying a client’s attitude may be needed when introducing a new service.
Change in Attitudes
Can lead to change in behavior
- Situation/Service-specific
* Changing a client’s attitude can be difficult,
especially when there is a strong loyalty to
another brand or provider.
Say: Service providers have two choices: either they can change clients' attitudes to be consistent with their services, or they can change their offerings to match client attitudes.
Modifying attitudes may be the only reasonable choice, as when a firm is introducing a truly new service or an unusual new use for an existing one.
Example: Convincing a manual payroll person to come aboard our tax filing solution. There needs be a shift in the way they view the control of their payroll and letting another company make tax deposits on their behalf.
Review Text from slide on Change in Attitude.
Final point:
Most service providers are aware that it is extremely difficult to change clients' attitudes. The stronger a person's loyalty to a certain brand, for example, the more difficult it is to change that attitude.

17. IV. The Final Steps in the Decision Process
Step 4: Product Service Selection and Outlet Selection
Evaluation and Selection Phases are closely related.
They choose you, they choose your services or
They choose your services, they choose you
Step 5: The Purchase Decision
Determining Factors:
Amount of effort client is willing to put forth to evaluate your services
Which factors actually influence the purchase?
(Did you satisfy their needs?)
What conditions would prohibit/delay the transition to your service?
Factors to influence purchase decision
- Advertising
- Personal Selling
- Referral Discounts
Review Step 4 focusing on the fact that the accountant and the services provided are closely related.
Review Step 5 which focuses on the actual decision. What determines the decision and what factors influence the final decision?
Knowing this information will help an accountant market their services.
Example:
Perhaps in their advertising, service providers can suggest an add-on benefit. For example, your refund is quickly and automatically deposited into your bank account. And sometimes several decision situations can be combined and marketed as one package. Think of your own personal examples of selling a combined value to your clients (TTCS or DAS)
To do a better marketing job at this stage of the buying process, a service provider needs to know answers to many questions about the shopping behavior of potential clients.
For instance, how much effort is the client willing to spend in shopping for the product? What factors influence when the client will actually purchase? Are there any conditions that would prohibit or delay purchase?
Providing basic product, price, and location information through advertising, personal selling and referral discounts are starting points.

18. IV. The Final Steps in the Decision Process, Continued
Step 6: Post-Purchase Behavior
Feelings and Evaluations After the Purchase Are Significant
Sets the stage for continual business
Provides referral opportunities
Suggestions to Reduce Post-Purchase Anxiety
Personalized reinforcement
Strong customer service
Proactive communication
Note: While the decision process appears to be standardized,
no two people make a decision in exactly the same way.
Be sure to:
Uncover the needs of potential clients
Present solutions to meet those needs
Ensure their satisfaction with your service
A client's feelings and evaluations after the purchase are also significant to a service provider. They can influence repeat sales and what the client tells others about the service. This can set the stage for referrals.
Nevertheless, clients typically experience some post-purchase anxiety. Keeping the client happy is what marketing is all about.
Here are a few suggestions to reduce post-purchase anxiety:
Personalized reinforcement
Strong customer services
Proactive communication
Use your own examples: First-input calls, delivery visits, sending a thank you card, etc.
While the decision making process appears quite standardized, no two people make a decision in exactly the same way.

19. Review of Today’s Segment
Summary:
Today's program covered
Client behavior and exchange
Relational marketing
Client behavior as problem solving
Six steps in the decision process
Key questions on buyer behavior:
How do potential buyers make purchase decision?
What factors influence buyers in decision process?
In today's program, we examined:
* Client behavior and exchange
* Relational marketing
* Client behavior as problem solving
* The six steps in the decision process
As a result, we hope you have a better idea of how and why potential clients would use your services.
Specifically, you should be able to answer:
One, how do potential clients go about making purchase decisions? And
Two, what factors influence their decision process and in what way?

20. Discussion Questions
Why has it become important to understand client behavior? To what extent do you understand your clients' behavior?
Today's marketplace has become extremely competitive as a result of new technology and increased programmability. Many observers believe that clients now control the marketplace.
NOTE: The next few slides are group discussion questions. You can read the question and solicit feedback. After a light discussion, click the space bar, and the authors notes will appear. You can then move on to the next group study question.

21. Discussion Questions
2. The program differentiates between individuals who act on their own behalf versus individuals who act on behalf of an organization. To what extent does your practice appeal to one or the other? How does this affect your marketing?
Participant response based on your practice, your clients, and their orientation, as well as your own background, perspective and experience.
NOTE: You can read the question and solicit feedback. After a light discussion, click the space bar, and the authors notes will appear. You can then move on to the next group study question.

22. Discussion Questions
The program differentiates between simple decision making for routine or repeat purchases versus complex decision making for high-priced or infrequently purchased products and services. To what extent do your practice fall into one group or the other? How does this affect your marketing?
Participant response based on your practice, your clients, and their orientation, as well as your own background, perspective and experience.
NOTE: You can read the question and solicit feedback. After a light discussion, click the space bar, and the authors notes will appear. You can then move on to the next group study question.

23. Discussion Questions
4. The program recommends actions that can reduce so-called "post-purchase anxiety." Why is this important? To what extent does your own practice engage in these actions?
The significance of post-purchase behavior is that it can affect "repeat" business as well as influence what clients tell others about your services.
NOTE: You can read the question and solicit feedback. After a light discussion, click the space bar, and the authors notes will appear. You can then move on to the next group study question.

24. Discussion Questions
To what extent has this program been helpful in terms of managing your own practice? Should we provide additional coverage on this topic in the future?
Participant response based on your practice your clients, and their orientation, as well as your own background, perspective and experience.
NOTE: You can read the question and solicit feedback. After a light discussion, click the space bar, and the authors notes will appear. You can then move on to the next group study question.

25. What Now?
Reference Handout Material for Additional Content Information
Review CPE Card
Complete Course by Taking Online Components
Thank you
NOTE: AT THIS TIME, PLEASE HAND OUT THE ACCOUNTANT CPE CARD DOCUMENT and PROGRAM REFERENCE MATERIALS FROM THE CD-ROM.
NOTE: You can remind users that they can access all study materials, including the original author’s complete video presentation of this topic online.