Fintech company Tax Traders has seen a steady climb in the number of clients signing up to be part of its loyalty program, with a 98% retention rate over four years. So what are the core insights and beliefs that underpin this growth?

Tax Traders understands that job satisfaction is a key driver of human motivation and believes that this can play a key role in designing client loyalty programs. Beyond simply offering discounts, Tax Traders has designed offerings within its client loyalty program (Tax Traders Advantage) that promote greater satisfaction in the work itself, primarily through using automation. The company cites this as a key reason for the steady growth and high client retention rate of the program.

According to Tax Traders co-founder Nicola Taylor, a prime example of this focus on job satisfaction as part of the loyalty program has been providing Tax Traders Advantage clients with the new integrated Income Tax Management Module.

The new module allows accountants to access a consolidated report showing live Inland Revenue income tax account transactions matched to Tax Traders tax pooling transactions, so they can quickly reconcile whether their client has amounts outstanding. This was provided as a complimentary offering as part of the client loyalty program.

“We receive feedback from clients that they want to automate as many of the manual tasks involved in provisional tax and tax pooling as they can and that this leads to increased job satisfaction. We are really motivated by the idea that our automated offering can be part of this,” notes Taylor.

“We want to enable accountants to allocate their brainpower to high-value work and we can do this by keeping time-consuming manual tasks off their to-do list. By listening carefully to our clients, we managed to identify that manually consolidating a taxpayer’s position was a real pain point.”

“We want to enable accountants to allocate their brainpower to high-value work and we can do this by keeping time-consuming manual tasks off their to-do list.”

After designing a solution to this pain point, Tax Traders offered this module free of charge to all of its Tax Traders Advantage clients. As a result of this, it has seen its client loyalty program grow significantly in size and scope, with firms moving over from other competing exclusive programs.

“By choosing to work with us exclusively, not only do our clients have better discounts and better tools, they also report just how satisfying it is to have such a refined service at their fingertips. This in turn is deeply satisfying for us,” Taylor says.

Having a say should mean something

Another core belief driving the design of the client loyalty program is the notion that clients want to be active collaborators in the development of the service and technology. The Tax Traders team sees this as another reason why clients are joining and staying.

“Instead of simply thinking ‘what rewards can we offer?’, Tax Traders continues to ask, ’what can we offer our clients as part of our client loyalty program to give them more ownership over the way they work?’, which is quite a different question,” Taylor notes.

For Taylor and her team, this means more than just seeking client feedback, but rather going out of their way to seek out client problems and then collaborating with clients to develop solutions to those problems.

“For clients in our client loyalty program, we love to have one of our in-house developers sit with them and understand the way they work, the parts of the provisional tax process that are frustrating to them, and then co-create solutions to solve these,” explains Taylor.

“This can be a real highlight not just for the client but also our developers. It engenders a sense of collaboration and partnership that we believe is part of our high client loyalty retention rate.”

The goal here is for clients to feel a sense of ownership in the Tax Traders software platform. “The truth is our platform would not have the tools and features it does without the active collaboration of our clients in the development of our technology. This is also key in developing client loyalty,” Taylor says.

Wearing their convictions on their sleeve

Tax Traders’ team members are very clear on their full-purpose business model and see the ethical motivation behind their work as part of the reason they experience high client retention rates. Again, they believe that loyalty programs should extend beyond discounts and tap into the human drive to belong to something with purpose.

“It’s part of everything we do,” says Taylor. “So it was always going to be a fundamental part of any client loyalty offering. We believe that business has a central role in helping people and communities to flourish and grow. In our own way, we’re working to make the world a better place. We believe our clients value knowing that their decision to choose to work with us is part of something bigger.”

She points to the way that every time a client signs up (or renews their membership) to Tax Traders Advantage, they choose a charity to receive a donation from Tax Traders.

“This is a small part of our overall significant investment as a full-purpose business, but it creates a sense of purpose for our Tax Traders Advantage clients, who know that by choosing to work with us, things are improving for people who really need it, both here and overseas.

“Fundamentally, it’s about creating ways for individuals, firms and communities to flourish,” she concludes. “That’s always been our compass.”

It starts with loyalty and gratitude

For Taylor, this all tracks back to a simple starting point: “We believe the loyalty we see from our clients starts with our loyalty to them.

“We are endlessly grateful to New Zealand’s accounting firms for supporting us over the years, and we constantly work to respect that loyalty in our service back to them. If there was ever a year to be backing each other to succeed, 2021 is it!”

Tax Traders and tax pooling

Tax Traders works closely with tax agents and accounting firms throughout New Zealand – from large firms to small independents – to give taxpayers full control over when and how their provisional and terminal tax is paid. Tax pooling is 100% Inland Revenue approved and provides greater flexibility and savings than paying Inland Revenue directly.

Find out more:

Call 0800 TAX TRADERS (829 872)
or email [email protected]
taxtraders.co.nz