Client Check-Ins 2026: Boost Retention & Grow Your Business (Step-by-Step Guide + Best Tools)

Hi everyone. It's Linda Artesani here from the Accountants Law Lab. And I'm gonna talk a little bit about if you're running a bookkeeping firm or an accounting firm or even a coaching business, Any kind of service-based business, you know that client retention is everything, especially in 2026. Did you know that a simple 5% increase in retention can boost your profits upwards of 25%? And existing clients are a wealth of an opportunity to grow your firm as well by adding on services that maybe they didn't know you could do. So that's another way you can really increase your revenue. Today I'm gonna share my step-by-step guide to client check-ins in 2026. How to use them for growth, for effective client communication and massive loyalty and great feedback, which is gold, and real business growth. So if you're tired of losing clients or you want to turn good relationships into long-term partnerships, stick around. This video is for you. And don't forget to hit the like button or even subscribe to our channel. So let's start with why check-ins matter. Let's first talk about that. So they're really a non-negotiable in 2026. And as we get into this AI world where everything's automated and there's chatbots and all these things, a client check-in is something that I hear from clients. They say, I had that bookkeeper for years and she never even talked to me. Those are the things you don't want to hear from a client. If you never talk to your client, how will you know about any shifting needs or problems before they blow up on you? How do you know what's even going on in their life or what they're thinking about doing with their firm if you never speak to them? That's the thing that we see a lot of times where you just don't know until you're all of a sudden getting that call. I need my records right now. I've gotta hurry up. I'm trying to get a loan. I'm buying a property, or I'm doing something. You don't know because they don't share that with you because They've got their head down working. You've got your head down working. So these honest feedbacks will help you to improve your services, and it will help you build an unbreakable trust and loyalty with these clients. They'll feel valued, not just billed. You want them to have that feeling, right? That they feel valued. Upsell or expansion opportunities will happen in these conversations where they're like, I didn't know you did that. I was gonna hire a coach or a CFO for XYZ. I didn't realize you had the ability to do that, or you sold that service. You wanna stand out in a competitive market where personalization always wins. And stats will back this up. The average retention rates hover around 55 to 85% across industries, but top performers who consistently check in with their clients will see a higher loyalty percentage. Proactive check-ins will help push your rate up. The bottom line is check-ins aren't just nice to have, they're a secret weapon in your client retention practice to get you some sustainable growth, 'cause happy clients are actually gonna be your best referral base. So we're gonna move on to best practices when we have this time to communicate with our clients. First thing, and this is the same as when you do a client engagement where you're actually meeting with the client for the first time and trying to scope out whether they can work with you, Active listening. Let them talk. Show empathy. They may be sharing with you problems that they have at home, problems that they have with their business. Show them empathy and then also validate their concerns and don't interrupt them. That's key. Set a clear agenda though. Make sure when you have this meeting, you set a clear agenda. We're starting to really formalize that at our firm, having these agendas and sticking to the topic at hand. It saves time for everybody because attorneys are really busy. So you wanna be cognizant of that. Share the topics ahead of time. Maybe share a list, a bulleted list about what you wanna talk about ahead of time so that everybody's prepared and everybody's focused. Balance short-term fixes with big picture goals. Quick wins and then strategic alignment. That's important. Always follow up. So after the meeting, give it a little time to simmer. If you gave them homework to do, let them do that. Give them that space and then send them a summary email with some action items on it and then deadlines. Give them the deadline. Mm-hmm. 'Cause clients are notorious for not following deadlines. Give them the deadlines. It will help reinforce commitment between you and the client. And every call with, what one thing can I do for you to help make this week better for you? Is there something I can do for you? Sometimes it's just, did you know that in Clio there's these templates to use and that you could maybe take the verbiage and all the messaging that's across the board in your firm and the billing that you do, and that you can set it up so that it's all preset so it saves time and doing the billing, saving time at billing is wonderful 'cause the clients look at the time that's spent billing as time that you're not really getting billable hours. So that's important. So that's a good way to end a call. And timing matters. So if you get it wrong, you can annoy the clients. If they're really busy, they got a big case going on, don't try to push for those meetings. Even when it comes to giving them their financials, sometimes we resort back to Loom and do a Loom video for them. They're very appreciative if they're really busy, they don't have time, but they really wanna understand their financials. Take that time to make that video. It will really help strengthen bonds between them. And if you've got new clients or high-touch clients, maybe you do a weekly meeting and it can be just 25 minutes or 15 minutes, or maybe you do a biweekly meeting. Just look at those as options to stay in touch with your client or have the bookkeeper on staff stay in touch with the client. It's always good for that too. They'll extrapolate more information than maybe the owner would, cuz there's only so much time we have in our day to be able to do this. And then, you know, if you have a low maintenance client, maybe just meet with them quarterly, but still have that touch-in. Don't forget about those clients. Those are still pretty beneficial for referral basis. And always ask their preference. How do they wanna do it? Some of them just wanna talk on the phone. I'm amazed at that. They just want a phone call, or sometimes they want a Zoom call. I think Zoom is nice because they get to see the face-to-face. It's almost the same as being in the office, but find out how they prefer it. to have a conversation with you and stick to that. Try to keep it nice and simple and straightforward and stick to that agenda. And then remember, you've got a lot of CRM tools that you can work with in 2026 that can help support these client check-ins. The top picks, there's HubSpot. That's a great starter CRM. It's got scheduling and tracking and automation. You can add in those little surveys at the end or surveys during the process to see what they're liking about working with you and what they don't like in the process. Salesforce is for bigger firms. There's Zoho has a CRM. There's other ones out there that you can get that will help you work. And then use maybe Calendly for booking because sometimes it's hard to get that timing right. You have a Calendly link, it makes life easier. Or, there's also Zoom for calls, Slack for teams, for quick chats if you wanna just do a quick chat. You can integrate and automate all these reminders in your CRM. We use Carbon. It's great for that kind of stuff. It gives you a way to have those conversations. Find a way to make it work with technology that works with your firm and, and try not to have too many technologies. We found that as we've grown, we started here and we moved to here and we went here and we've got clients still in the old stuff. You want to streamline that because it makes it hard for your team to know where to communicate. Try to keep it centralized place to communicate with clients, but a safe and secure one as well. And so gather and analyze feedback. Feedback is gold. Here's how to ask, how to get it. So you can ask an open-ended question. What's working best for you right now with us? And then where can we improve? It can be simple like that. It can be a simple Google Form that you send out that just gives 'em a chance to type in something, or a Typeform. Give 'em a way just to do a real quick star rating and then give 'em a place to write. And then thank them genuinely. Make it a safe space to be honest, but also thank them for their time in doing that because it is time outta their day if they're rating their services with you. Yeah. And then analyze, categorize, track the trends, your NPS score, prioritize fixes. AI is great for this, right? Start to use the AI to your benefit with that. Build stronger relationships with your clients. Show interest in their goals. They're building a home or whatever they're doing, show interest in it. They're trying to save for a vacation. Ask about the vacation when they come back. Show an interest in them personally and have that personal touch. And then that's gonna help you to really connect to them on a deeper level. Highlight their wins. Hey, look, I was looking at your records and wow, you're doing a great job. Your revenue is 1.5x or whatever. Those are important things to do. Surveys help. Meeting with them helps. Monthly reviews. It's all good stuff. So avoid the pitfalls. Try not to wing it in the meetings. [LAUGHTER] Try to really prepare for the meetings. That's very important. I can't tell you that enough. You come in and if your meeting was supposed to be this and it veers off into a squirrel moment, it's not gonna benefit you. So try to keep it concise, wrap it up, keep it small, maybe keep it on one topic if you're gonna do multiple meetings, set a cadence, and always follow through. No broken promises here. That's really important. What is your biggest client check-in challenge? Drop it in the comments. I'd love to read them. I try to read every comment that we get. Like this video if it was helpful to you and subscribe to our website, our newsletter for more business growth tips and hit that bell and, and we'll be reminded when we have another video. So stay in touch. We would love to hear from you. And until next week, bye now. Bye.