How to Promote Improved Customer Experience with Digital Transformation

Becoming paperless offers countless benefits to tax firms small and large but there’s one problem many face: technology-resistant clients. 

Your tax clients are used to dropping off their documents directly to you and getting them back in the mail. They’re not interested in technology. They might feel it’s not secure to send such sensitive documents through email or online software. 

Or maybe they just feel it’s too cumbersome to try and learn a complicated new system. 

Developing a paperless pipeline has numerous advantages for your business. But you can’t gain from these advantages if your clients are resistant to the change. How can you get them to go digital and feel safe sharing documents online? 

You’ll want to begin by effectively communicating the benefits they reap by going paperless. Offering incentives may also help inspire them into action. 

The Benefits of a Paperless Pipeline

Filing taxes usually involves loads of paper. There are mountains of receipts and bills to go through and a ton of paperwork to process and submit to the IRS. A paperless pipeline can eliminate this completely by digitizing everything from receipts to the submission of prepared tax documents. 

Help your clients trust the process of a paperless pipeline by sharing with them all the benefits involved. 

1.Cutting Down on Errors

It’s often that a receipt goes missing and doesn’t make it into the tax return calculations, throwing off the figures and ending up in painful surprises. Going paperless drastically reduces this by capturing all purchase information digitally. 

2. Reducing Paper Bulk

Going digital has a positive effect on the environment and your bottom line by reducing the amount of paper used by you and your clients. Now, your clients won’t have to lug around a box of paperwork back and forth between offices since everything is stored digitally. 

3. Saves Money

By storing all your tax-related documents online, you eliminate the need to print anything which cuts down on ink, toner, and paper purchases. The client saves money by not having to print anything and the tax firm saves even more with this reduction in cost. You’ll also cut down on mailing costs like postage and shipping fees and the costs of packaging sensitive documents appropriately for the mail. These savings passed on to customers might make them happy to switch. 

4. Saves Time

Not only does becoming paperless save money, it sure saves time too. You’re spending a lot of time filing away your documents, retrieving them for processing, preparing them for posting, traveling to the post office, or dropping them off directly. Show your customers how much time they’ll save by simply scanning documents securely into your office. 

5. Easier Data Processing

When files are stored online, it becomes easier to manipulate the data to spot trends and any issues that may arise. As a tax business, you can easily identify errors or pointers your clients may implement to reduce their tax costs. 

The fact is that even your favorite online tools can be riddled with errors and security issues. Introducing safe and supported software into your business can save you from embarrassing and costly mistakes.  

How to Get Clients to Go Digital

Start by encouraging your clients to scan and save everything online. They can use their smartphone to snap pictures of receipts as soon as they get them. This simple change might encourage them to implement other tips and begin getting used to technology. 

From there, you can encourage them to share documents online. Show them how secure this is and how quick and convenient it can be to do. Introduce them to software that is easy to use and boasts iron-clad security to help ease any fears they might have. 

TaxDome allows clients to share documents online without having to log in. By scanning a document with their phone, it will seamlessly and securely appear in their files without fumbling around for passwords and extra steps. 

Follow these ideas when convincing your clients to become paperless: 

Ease of Use – Set up and demonstrate how easy your online portal is to use. Share all the features that will help make your business and your clients’ life a much better partnership. The easier your online portal is to use, the higher the adoption rate is likely to be. Create videos to share with your clients showing the ease of use and all the benefits there are to go digital. 

Show and Tell – Have kiosks or computers ready for demonstrations in the office for those clients who still prefer to come in. Train them personally yourself or have a team member walk them through the process of storing and sharing documents online. Show them what to expect and how the entire process works from submission of paperwork to completion of tasks. 

Emphasize Security – Make sure your videos and other communication articulate how secure your software is. Share with them the layers of security involved without getting too technical. 

Share the Savings – Breakdown how much it costs them to mail in documents or travel to drop them off. Summarize the costs to store mounds of documents in your office and how time-consuming it is to retrieve documents in storage for processing. Then share the savings that have been passed on to them by moving to this new system. 

Show them new information – Share how easy it is to manipulate the data in ways that can benefit them. This might include easier sales forecasts, running tax costs or cost-benefit analysis. With the right software, it also becomes easier to see what the figures look like as you get closer to filing time. 

Reward their efforts – Introduce a time-sensitive incentive that is received when they go paperless by a specified deadline.

Becoming Paperless Even With Resistant Clients

While your clients may be slow to transition into your paperless pipeline, your business can still benefit from becoming paperless using automation. With TaxDome’s Scheduled Jobs and Automove features, your internal processes become self-operated, freeing you up to concentrate on attracting more clients or focusing on other profitable tasks.

Some of TaxDome’s features that can help you to go digital include: 

• Easy to use software – the mobile app and desktop client portal makes it easy for your clients to scan and secure documents to their account with your company. If they are slow to adopt this feature, you can still digitize their incoming files for secure storage and easier access.
• Safely share documents online – with our fully secure system, documents can easily be shared with outside parties such as accountants or lawyers who may need the information instead of sending unsafe emails.
• Unlimited storage – storing files becomes expensive quickly as time goes by and as your client base increases. With TaxDome, your storage is unlimited, saving you money, time, and space.
• Automating your business processes – schedule reminders to your clients when it’s time for them to submit bank statements or other documents then have tasks assigned to internal team members once those documents are received. This and other seamless automation processes relieve your business of clunky time-consuming administrative tasks.
• Submit legally signed documents, digitally – with TaxDome’s e-signature feature, documents can be signed online and submitted to government offices virtually and securely.

Joseph & Hetrick, LLC shares their experience on providing “WOW” experience to its clients — even the most demanding clients —  using TaxDome:

Going Digital Made Easier

The fact is that the cost of not going digital is high. Netflix’s rise over Blockbuster is not a fate any business wants to endure. 

Choosing TaxDome as your secure digital partner makes your transition to a virtual office a breeze. Take advantage of the savings and benefits of going paperless by servicing more clients and building a wider remote team. We’ve made it easy and affordable to transition to a virtual space and run your entire business safely online. 

Read how Brooklyn FI scaled 3x with TaxDome. Read>>