Expand your pipeline and boost sales by offering your current clients additional services. This approach not only strengthens relationships with clients but also drives loyalty and repeat business.
It might seem surprising, but the traditional belief that clients prefer to work with different firms for different needs isn’t always accurate. The “horses for courses” mentality suggests clients gravitate toward specialists for specific challenges, avoiding “one-stop-shop” providers in favour of niche expertise.
Beaton’s research reveals a different story. Clients who consolidate their services with a single firm tend to be more satisfied and achieve better results. By engaging one provider for multiple services, they experience smoother collaboration, a deeper understanding of their needs, and a more seamless overall experience.
Instead of focusing on traditional selling, firms can create compelling opportunities for clients to buy from them across different service lines.
In this post, we share insights from our data on cross-buying and offer practical advice on how to develop an effective cross-selling strategy.
What is cross-selling?
Cross-selling is a strategic approach where a firm proactively offers additional services to its existing clients, aiming to broaden the client relationship and add value. It often involves collaboration between different teams or service areas within the firm. For example, a team providing tax advisory services might recommend risk management or transaction services to the same client. This method relies on a deep understanding of the client’s business and needs, identifying areas where the firm’s broader expertise can help address challenges or unlock opportunities.
Fundamentally, cross-selling is provider-driven, meaning it originates within the firm. It reflects an “inside-out” perspective, where teams take the initiative to uncover and present new solutions to their clients. Done effectively, cross-selling strengthens the client relationship, boosts trust, and positions the firm as a comprehensive partner capable of delivering an integrated range of services.
What is cross-buying?
Cross-buying, in contrast, is driven by the client rather than the provider. In this scenario, a client actively seeks additional services from other areas of the firm based on their needs or challenges. For instance, a client initially working with a firm on valuation services might independently approach the same firm for legal compliance or forensic accounting expertise. Cross-buying reflects the client’s perception of the firm as a trusted and versatile partner with the capability to solve various problems.
Research shows clients prefer to receive multiple service lines from a single professional services firm.
Research identifies a key growth opportunity for professional services
Every year, Beaton Benchmarks surveys thousands of clients of legal, accounting, IP specialist and built and natural environment consulting services providers.
We ask clients of Australia and New Zealand’s largest professional services firms to rate their experience with their providers. Respondents represent a mix of leaders including c-suites, senior, general and functional management from both public and private organisations.
Respondents score the firms’ performance on a scale from 0 to 10, 0 being poor and 10 being excellent, across several attributes. They also indicate their usage of service lines or practices within the firm. Combining the results from these questions generates insight into how client experience varies with the number of services used.
This analysis of 36,000 client responses reveals a link between client happiness and a higher number of service lines or practice groups used. That is, the more services used, the higher the client rated the firm’s performance.
Beaton data shows that creating situations where clients want to buy from you, and therefore reducing your need to sell, is highly achievable.
Results show loyal clients are happy customers
The following chart maps overall client service scores for firms in three professions on the vertical axis and the horizontal axis shows the number of practice groups or service lines used in the previous 12 months. It shows that the perceived performance of a law firm increased 1.6% for every additional practice group used. This trend is similarly positive for accounting (2.5%) and built and natural environment consulting (1.9%).
The results are conclusive: there is a very high correlation between the number of services used and the clients’ level of satisfaction. Put simply, the more they buy, the happier they get and also the happier they get, the more they buy.
Understanding cross-buying behaviour in professional services
Our data shows clients find it beneficial and prefer sourcing services from one provider for several reasons:
- Managing one provider simplifies the procurement process. Managing multiple relationships across different providers, negotiating separate contracts, and coordinating with different parties is much more challenging. Fewer communication channels to manage means smoother, more efficient operations.
- Buying services from one provider can been more financially attractive. Buying power can lead to cost savings with lower prices and reduction of administrative and transaction costs.
- A single firm is better positioned to provide better service delivery. As a firm becomes familiar with the specific needs of the client, they can tailor their services accordingly. This results in more consistent quality, processes, and service levels.
- Most importantly, it enables stronger relationships to develop between the client and a single firm. Other Beaton research shows that one of the biggest drivers of client choice is whether the firm ‘understands the client’s business’.
How to develop an effective cross-selling and cross-buying strategy
The truth is clients cross-buy when service is outstanding. Our CX in Professional Services report found that clients providing excellent experience scores are 3.4x more likely than those with poor experience scores to consider the same firm for additional services.
Our numbers also show that 48% of clients proactively cross-buy or have been persuaded by their firms to do so. Cross-selling is an opportunity that you don’t want to miss out on.
The following are some key tips for maximising the ROI of your cross-selling and cross-buying strategy.
1. Measure service line use by client organisation
To identify gaps and cross-selling opportunities, firms first need to understand how clients are currently using different services. Identifying and tracking key metrics that measure this generates useful insights. Establishing a regular reporting mechanism to monitor and analyse these metrics enables proactive action to optimise client engagement and satisfaction.
The following chart illustrates the power of having metrics. It shows the percentage of clients in accounting firms who have engaged more than one service line in each firm. A majority, that is, 11 of 16 firms, has a majority of clients who cross-buy from them. One lucky firm (A) has 88% of its clients cross-buying from them.
In this chart there is no pattern in terms of the size of firm (for instance, there are Big 4 firms at both the top and bottom ends of the chart), type of firm (single firm vs. network) or client type.
2. Develop an internal referral policy and monitor compliance
Encourage your people to refer different practice areas and service line teams to clients. Develop a comprehensive policy that helps drive internal referrals within the firm. This should include:
- Regular inspections to ensure adherence to the policy
- Recognising and rewarding compliance to encourage desired behaviours
- Discouraging and establishing sanctions for behaviours such as “hugging and grabbing” that hinder effective referral practices.
3. Improve core service performance
A firm should not be considering cross-selling if it does not have the fundamentals right. Do you know if your clients are satisfied? Through data, not anecdote. It’s not enough to simply provide high levels of service; Beaton’s benchmarking data reveals that firms failing to continuously improve over time are actually falling behind the competition.
4. Consider your brand
As you cross-sell and as you grow, there will be implications on client perceptions of your firm’s brand. For instance, if your firm is known as being highly specialised and if that is where you want to position your brand, care will need to be taken so clients do not begin to perceive you as more of a generalist. Read more about perceptions of complex and routine work.
Your firm should also consider whether you have “brand permission” to move into new spaces. This refers to whether the market considers the services and practices you want to grow and logically aligned with your existing brand and capabilities. For instance, a civil engineering firm may find little success growing a digital or artificial intelligence practice if it has little-to-no experience working with new technologies.
Cross-selling has implications on client perceptions of your firm’s brand, which are important to consider.
5. Routinely survey your clients
Segment your results by your practices and service lines to identify where there may be new cross-selling opportunities. High performing areas are prime opportunities for promotion to existing clients, provided they align with those clients’ needs.
6. Carefully grow your capabilities to meet market needs
Identify the services that current and prospective clients are looking for. Consolidate your client conversations and feedback to uncover the trends in the market. If there are gaps between their needs and your capabilities, assess the gap and evaluate the resources required to bridge it. Establish criteria to determine the optimal ratio between breadth and depth of services.
7. Know your competitors
Understanding what your competitors are doing can help identify unique opportunities for you to offer. It can also provide insights on your clients’ expectations of service providers as well as what works and doesn’t for your profession.
By focusing on these tips, a firm can develop a strategy to encourage cross-buying and therefore boost sales via cross-selling. To do this, firms first need the right insights and data.
Insights for business growth strategy
Beaton Benchmarks provides the data you need to enhance cross-selling and cross-buying opportunities within your firm. By analysing client feedback and benchmarking data, you can identify areas where clients may benefit from additional services. Understand client preferences, track service usage, and gain competitive insights to strategically broaden your offerings. With Beaton Benchmarks, you can better position your firm to reduce the need for hard selling, while creating seamless opportunities for clients to buy more services from you.
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