Playbook, accounting firm
Eleven at night, and somebody wants an accountant by morning
Late traffic at a practice is not spread evenly through the year. It clusters in the days before a filing date and it has a particular shape: somebody who has been doing it themselves, has got stuck, and wants a firm to take it on tonight. That cannot happen, for reasons that have nothing to do with willingness, and the only useful reply says so and then says what can happen instead.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for out of hours holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- Taking on a new client needs identity verification and an authority whose lead time is set by somebody other than the practice, so there is no honest answer to take me on tonight at any hour.
- The deadline the person is panicking about is theirs, and what they can still do about it differs from what a practice can arrange, which is exactly why nothing in the reply may resemble advice about their next move.
- The volume arrives in one compressed window each year and then stops, so a practice that ignores evening messages is unreachable during the fortnight its enquiry traffic is worth the most.
- Unlike a trade with an emergency callout, there is no out of hours route to point anybody at, so the reply has to convert honestly instead of escalating: what happens tomorrow, in what order, and what to send now.
How it arrives
- can you file my return for me tonight
- is anyone there it is late and i am stuck
- can you take me on before the deadline
- what happens if i miss it by a day
- do you work weekends in the busy period
- i have started my return myself and given up
What has to be indexed for this to work
| What genuinely happens overnight, and when a message is read | The address an enquiry lands in and who opens it first in the morning. If nothing is looked at before the office opens, say that, rather than implying somebody is sitting at a screen. |
|---|---|
| The truthful position on taking somebody on close to a deadline | How late you can realistically accept new work, what has to be in place first, and what you say to somebody who is past that point. Publish it, because the alternative is a promise made at eleven at night. |
| What a prospect can usefully do before morning | Which documents to gather, what to send, and what not to send. It turns a panicking enquiry into a morning that starts with something useful already in the inbox. |
| Your working pattern during the filing period | Whether you work later or at weekends then, and what that does to response times. It is the one time of year clients believe an accountant might be at a desk at midnight, and often they are right. |
The reply
Nobody is here at this hour, and I would rather say so than imply otherwise. Two honest things. We cannot take on a new client overnight, because identity checks and the authority to act for you have to be in place first, and that authority has a lead time we do not control [1]. What is worth doing now is gathering what is listed on our new client page and sending the enquiry, so it is at the top of the pile in the morning [2]. Leave me your name, an email and the date you are working to.
It says nobody is watching in the opening line, because the reader's worst outcome is sitting up waiting for a reply. The refusal names the real obstacle rather than the office being shut, which is what stops the person asking three other firms the same question. Capturing the date is what lets a practice sort a night of messages by urgency rather than by arrival.
Where it stops
The trigger. Any message sent outside working hours that mentions a deadline, a penalty notice, or wanting to be taken on quickly.
There is nobody here now, and I do not want to promise you anything overnight. Leave me your name, an email and the date you are working to, and it will be at the front of the queue when the office opens.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say somebody will look at a message tonight, or before the inbox is genuinely opened.
- Never say what happens if a deadline is missed, or what a penalty might come to.
- Never suggest the practice can take somebody on and file for them before the checks are complete.
- Never advise a prospect to submit something themselves in the meantime.
Questions
- Is it worth answering at midnight at all?
- In this trade it is the highest value hour of the year. The people typing then are ready to instruct somebody and are trying three firms at once. A reply that is honest about tonight and specific about tomorrow keeps the enquiry.
- Can it tell somebody whether they will miss the deadline?
- No, and it must not try. That turns on their own position and on what they have already done, and a wrong reassurance at that hour is the worst answer the practice could possibly give.
- Should the fallback message say anything different overnight?
- Have it say that nobody is watching and what happens in the morning. The messages that need it most are the ones phrased worst, and those will not match anything in your material.
Keep reading
- Everything for a accounting firmDeadlines drive the volume. What an accountancy practice can automate, and why no answer may touch a caller's own numbers.
- Handling out of hours in generalThe difference between an emergency route and a message form, and why an honest wait time beats a promise you cannot keep.
- Publishing accountancy fees so the assistant routes to the right packageFixed monthly packages against hourly work, priced by client profile, and why the answer changes in the weeks before a filing deadline.
- Why the package price is not the quote for the person askingCatch up years, records in a carrier bag and income from abroad all break the published package. How the assistant gives a range and stops.
- Fee queries from existing clients, answered from the engagement termsAdditional fee queries answered from the engagement terms: what triggered a charge, when the practice invoices, and where the query goes next.
Try it on your own material
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