The focus is in the wrong place
Every year, professional service firms invest millions in acquiring new clients. Pitches, proposals, events, networking lunches, sponsorships. The entire machine runs on acquisition.
Meanwhile, existing clients leave. Not because the work was bad. But because the process felt too heavy. Because they had to send the same document three times. Because nobody could tell them where their file stood. Because every year felt like starting from zero.
Research by Frederick Reichheld (Bain & Company) showed back in the nineties that a 5% increase in client retention can boost profits by 25% to 95%. Acquiring a new client costs three to five times more than keeping an existing one. In professional services, that number is likely even higher. The onboarding, the knowledge building, the first engagement: those are months of investment that only pay off when the relationship lasts multiple years.
Yet most firms focus on inflow. And far too little on the question of how existing clients experience the process.
In the first article in this series, we described the peak-end rule: the principle that people judge an experience by a handful of moments, not the whole. The onboarding, the delivery, and the peaks in between. One negative peak can overshadow months of good work. The data from the State of the Audit 2025 study show what those negative peaks look like in practice.
From our research: 61% of clients resent documents they had already delivered. Not because something was missing, but because the firm couldn't find them. 70% had no clear view of progress, responsibilities, or timing. Only 12% had access to a live status overview. The rest had to email or call to find out where their file stood.
81% of senior partners in our research name client-centricity as a strategic pillar. But only 22% of professionals have ever used client feedback to change anything about how they collaborate.
The AI paradox
Meanwhile, the sector buzzes with AI strategies. At conferences, in boardrooms, on LinkedIn. The Big Four showcase their billions in AI investments. Smaller firms feel the pressure to follow.
But here's the paradox. From our research: 3 out of 4 auditors expect their firm to invest heavily in AI tooling over the next three years. At the same time, only 19% are satisfied with their current client-facing tools. And at that very moment, that same firm is still sending dozens of manual follow-up emails daily to track down where their files are.
The sector is investing in the next technology layer while the foundation underneath still creaks. Attention goes to what's new, the shiny objects, not to what hurts. And what hurts, the client feels every day.
"The firms that will lead are the ones who start designing for client experience."
— Dr. Mathias Celis, co-founder Alkmist and behavioral scientist at Ghent University
Where the real gains are
In a world where everyone can buy the same AI tools, technology is no longer a differentiator. What does make a difference is how the client experiences the collaboration.
From the State of the Audit 2025 study: when clients were asked what drives their decision in an audit tender, three factors dominated. Price (92%), efficiency of the process (86%), and personal connection and pragmatic communication (81%). Technological capabilities came in at fourth place (47%).
Clients don't choose the firm with the best AI. They choose the firm where the process hurts the least. Where they don't feel chased. Where they feel understood.
That is today's most underutilized competitive position in professional services. This is the low-hanging fruit.
Don't overwhelm. Make it manageable.
A large part of client frustration doesn't come from the complexity of the work itself. It comes from how that work is presented to the client.
An Excel with 80 document requests in a single email. Vague technical descriptions of what's expected. Deadlines that don't align with the client's rhythm. Three contact persons on the firm's side, with no clarity about who is responsible for what.
Cognitive load theory explains why this is so problematic. Our working memory can only process a limited number of information elements at once. When the amount of information exceeds that capacity, processing stops. People start procrastinating, making mistakes, or simply not responding.
In professional services, this means: the more you ask of your client at once, the less you get back. Not because the client is unwilling. But because the brain checks out.
The solution is not more technology. The solution is less at a time. Bite-sized steps. Clearer expectations. One thing at a time. And ideally, all of it in a transparent overview so everyone knows where the file stands and whose court the ball is in.
Seven things you can do this month
1. Only give your client what's relevant right now. Don't send an Excel with 80 requests at once. Behavioral scientists call it progressive disclosure: only present tasks that are actionable at this moment. When the first step is completed, the next one follows. Not before. The less on your client's plate at any given time, the faster and more accurate the response. Firms in our research that already applied this reported 30% to 50% fewer clarification emails.
2. Give your client a central overview. Nobody wants to scroll through fifteen emails to figure out what's still outstanding. Provide one place where the client can see at a glance: what has been received, what is being processed, what is still open. From our research: only 12% of clients had access to any form of status overview. The rest had to email or call. That's not a communication problem. That's a design problem.
3. Make your file manager accessible. Truly accessible. There's a well-known phenomenon at companies that introduce unlimited vacation days: employees typically take fewer, not more. Because the threshold to ask feels higher when there's no explicit invitation. The same applies to clients. Make sure the file manager is known, has a face, and that the client doesn't feel like the meter starts running every time they pick up the phone to ask a question. From our research: 59% of clients said their interaction was primarily with junior team members. 43% rarely or never had contact with the signing partner.
4. Design a closing ritual. Most engagements end with a delivered document and an invoice. That's a missed opportunity. Turn the closing into a deliberate moment. A personal conversation of ten minutes. Not to ask whether the end result was good (clients often can't assess that), but to ask about the journey. What went smoothly? Where was the friction? What could be better next year? From our research: only 22% of professionals have ever used client feedback to change anything. That closing ritual is the difference between a transaction and a relationship.
5. Centralize your client knowledge. Not in a shared Word document. In a central place where all relevant information comes together: meeting notes, call logs, agreements, client context that would otherwise disappear in inboxes and heads. From our research: not a single firm had a centralized knowledge base. 79% had no consistent way to retrieve meeting notes across engagements. Anyone who talks about AI today but doesn't have this in order is building on quicksand.
6. Identify your heaviest contact moment. Ask internally: at which point in the process do clients ask the most questions, respond the slowest, or sound the most frustrated? That moment is your negative peak. That's where you gain the most. Not by redesigning the entire process, but by deliberately reshaping that one moment.
7. Choose tools that start from the client experience. Most firms choose software based on what the internal team needs. The client is rarely part of the selection criteria. Flip it around. For every tool, ask the question: what does this change for our client? Platforms like Alkmist are specifically designed to structure the collaboration between firm and client, with client experience as the starting point, not as a byproduct.
Conclusion
Professional services talk a lot about innovation. About AI, about digitalization, about the future. But the client lives in the present. And in that present, the client wants three things: to know what's expected of them, to be able to follow where their file stands, and to not have to explain who they are all over again every year.
That doesn't require an investment in technology. It requires an investment in attention. In the deliberate choice to take the client's experience just as seriously as the quality of the end result.
Firms that do this keep their clients longer. And clients who stay longer are more profitable, easier to serve, and more likely to recommend the firm. That's not marketing theory. That's simple math.
The question is not whether you can afford to invest in this. The question is whether you can afford not to.
State of the Audit 2025
This article is the third in a series that will appear over the coming months. Each piece dives deeper into one specific theme from the research, with concrete insights for professionals in audit, tax, accounting, legal, and other knowledge-intensive services.
The full State of the Audit 2025 report is freely available.
Download the State of the Audit 2025 report here.
Sources
1. Reichheld, F.F. & Sasser, W.E. (1990). Zero Defections: Quality Comes to Services. Harvard Business Review, 68(5), 105-111.
2. Reichheld, F.F. (1996). The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value. Harvard Business School Press.
3. Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive Load During Problem Solving: Effects on Learning. Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257-285.
4. Kahneman, D., Fredrickson, B.L., Schreiber, C.A. & Redelmeier, D.A. (1993). When More Pain Is Preferred to Less: Adding a Better End. Psychological Science, 4(6), 401-405.
5. Cojuharenco, I. & Ryvkin, D. (2022). Peak-end rule and duration neglect: A meta-analysis. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 170, 104-135
6. Celis, M. & De Brant, T. (2025). State of the Audit: Europe 2025. Ghent University & Alkmist.
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