Speaker: Harrison Pleasance, Senior Tax Manager, Haslers
Harrison Pleasance: Hi, my name's Harrison and I'm a Senior Tax Manager at Haslers.
Before using Glasscubes, how did you request information from clients, and what problems or frustrations did that cause?
Harrison Pleasance: Before we used Glasscubes we used a commercial tax software to request tax return information from our clients. The software that we used would require clients to create an account in order to access their information. One of the biggest barriers we faced was that clients would often forget their login details, or have issues with the authentication process. For the clients that did manage to enter the portal, they would often struggle to find the documents that we sent, or respond to the messages that we sent. This would typically lead to clients being put off from using the portal altogether. Another issue we found in our previous system was that information was rarely sent to us through the client portal, and instead clients would revert to using email or sending information by post. This would create a messy file for our tax clients, as information would often be returned piecemeal by different means. The portal system would also only send generic messages to our clients when documents were sent to them, and this would often lead to questions from clients as to whether the requests we were sending were genuine and create all round confusion.
Did you have any concerns about moving to a new solution like Glasscubes, and were any of these subsequently realised?
Harrison Pleasance: I think naturally there's always an element of apprehension when you're moving to a new solution such as Glasscubes. Our main concern as a business was how would this new system be received by our clients, and if it would make the information request process more efficient for for both us and them. We worked closely with Glasscubes in the early stages to promote the new solution and educate our clients on how to use it. This was done by sending targeted emails and text messages to our clients before we launched Glasscubes so they knew what to expect. There are also several questions raised by the staff in Haslers during the setup phase, and these were all answered fully and promptly by the Glasscubes team. I personally had regular catch up calls with our Customer Success Manager Kayleigh to iron out any other teething issues. The initial bulk information request that was sent by Glasscubes went without a hitch.
Please describe working with us. How has Glasscubes helped you, your firm, and/or your clients?
Harrison Pleasance: I would say all around working with the Glasscubes team has been a seamless experience, to ease the transition from moving from our old system to the new system. Glasscubes provided us with clear instructions on how to get the best from their product and there was regular communication from start to finish to ensure that any of our questions and requests were dealt with promptly and efficiently. As I've mentioned, the biggest barrier we saw in our previous system was, there was a log in process, and also there was a lack of personal touch. With Glasscubes both of those issues were immediately removed. Glasscubes doesn't require clients to log into a system, and we also have the ability to send clients personalised messages that they can clearly see come from someone within Haslers. This has not only encouraged our clients to use Glasscubes, but it's also taken away the doubts that the requests are genuine, as they can clearly see it's from a member of our team. To add to this, we have Glasscubes set up so that it sends automatic reminders to our clients, if they've not sent us information within a set period. We've already noticed a decrease in the time that we would typically spend chasing these clients and reminding them to provide us with their information. I would say overall we've definitely seen an improvement in the percentage of clients that provided us with their information by this point in the year.
Harrison Pleasance: If there are any fellow advisors out there who have encountered similar issues to us when requesting information from clients, then I would not hesitate to recommend Glasscubes as as a solution to these issues. We have seen an immediate impact in terms of clients providing information in a more timely manner, and this also reduced our admin time by a considerable margin. This has created an all round, more efficient process for both us and our clients.
