If small business owners are getting younger: what does this mean for the customer experience journey?

Eighty percent of new business is generated by word of mouth. I bet that figure does not surprise you! 

This confirms something that I have believed for a very long time… the client experience is fast becoming the key to small business success.

This week I had the pleasure of presenting to over 3,000 accountants and bookkeepers at Xerocon London on the work we are doing to help our accounting and bookkeeping partners prepare for a new kind of customer - millennials.

According to Xero’s latest research, 38% of people running small businesses in the UK today are under 35 years old, and that’s only going to grow. A study conducted by Millennial Branding shows that 72% of high school students and 64% of college students are eager to start their own business, so this is definitely a growing trend.

But are our accounting and bookkeeping partners ready to service this growing group of millennial business owners? 

Xero’s own research into millennial business owners tells us there is a big gap in the service that they’re looking for from their accountants and bookkeepers, and what they’re actually receiving. 

Out of the 1,500 UK small businesses we spoke to, 83% were very optimistic about the future of their businesses and yet, nearly 39% of millennial small business owners are actively looking to replace their existing advisor next year. 

A new breed of small business owner and the opportunity this presents

While the average age of small business owners may be getting younger, it presents a huge opportunity for savvy accountants and bookkeepers to be a real partner to them – to offer proactive advice, get behind the numbers, and help to identify new ways of running the business more efficiently. 

At Xero, we’re taking this kind of feedback we’re hearing from business owners seriously, and are taking steps to ensure our accounting and bookkeeping partners are equipped to respond to the needs of a new kind of small business client.

We believe customer success is about delivering a consistent, frictionless end-to-end experience for our partners across all our channels and product platforms. That means anticipating questions – long before they ask them. It also means equipping accountants and bookkeepers with the tools that enable them to be well informed, tech savvy and ready to be the business ‘coach’ their clients need them to be.

I’ve written about the human ripple effect previously, and through this approach we’re disrupting the customer experience every day – combining benefits from world-leading tech with the human touch and our passionate Xeros. 

Ultimately it is our goal to enable our accounting and bookkeeping partners to be a ‘coach’ to their clients, just as we are a coach to them.