Client follow-ups: closing the loops a practice quietly leaves open

Ask a partner what the firm is waiting on and you will get a confident answer about documents. Ask what the firm owes clients and the answer is vaguer, because those items are not on a list anywhere. They are in somebody's head, in a sent-items folder, or in the memory of a meeting in April.

A practice runs on open loops: proposals sent and never mentioned again, planning points raised once, a question somebody promised to come back on, a client who stopped replying and was never followed up. Almost none of it is tracked, and unlike a missing bank statement none of it produces a visible gap. That is why it stays open.

What we'll cover

• The loops a practice carries
• Why they close in some firms and not others
• Proposals, the most valuable unchased loop
• Advice that was never actioned
• Building it with CodeWords
• Follow-ups that are not reminders
• Tone, and the line before a sales sequence
• The client who has gone quiet
• What the marketing rules allow
• Making it survive
• Limits worth knowing about
• What to build first
• Frequently asked questions

The loops a practice carries

Worth naming, because most firms recognise every one and track none.

Proposals and quotes. Sent, acknowledged, never decided. The client did not say no. Nobody asked again.

"I'll look into that." Said in a meeting, meant sincerely, written in nobody's system.

Planning points. A pension contribution worth making before year end, a capital allowance decision, a dividend timing question. Raised in the accounts meeting, relevant eight months later, forgotten by both parties.

Deadlines ahead of the client. A registration threshold they are approaching, a payment on account, a first VAT return. You can see it coming; they cannot.

Returned work awaiting approval. A return sitting unsigned in an inbox, which is the commonest reason a finished job files late.

The onboarding that half-finished. A client who sent two of the four things, was never chased for the rest, and is now a year in with a gap in the file.

Why they close in some firms and not others

The difference is rarely diligence. It is whether the loop exists somewhere outside a person.

An item in a shared register with an owner and a date gets closed. An item in a sent-items folder gets closed if the sender happens to remember on a quiet day, which means it gets closed in July and not in January.

So the thing worth building is the register: what we owe, to whom, by when, and who is responsible. Sequences attach to it afterwards and are the easy part.

The test is simple. If a senior member of staff left tomorrow, could anybody list what that person had promised clients? In most practices the honest answer is no, which is a risk as well as lost revenue.

Proposals, the most valuable unchased loop

An unanswered proposal is not a no. It is usually a client who read it on a phone, meant to think about it, and had something else happen.

Three follow-ups over three weeks, each short and each adding something rather than repeating, converts a meaningful share of those. The additions matter more than the persistence: the first can offer to walk through it, the second can address the objection you suspect, the third can simply ask for a decision either way so it can be closed.

Asking for a no is the part firms skip and the part that helps most. A proposal that is definitely dead is worth more than one that might be alive, because it stops occupying attention and it tells you something about the pricing.

Log the outcome every time, including the losses and the reason. A year of that is the most useful pricing data a small practice will ever have, and it costs one field.

Advice that was never actioned

This is the loop with the most value in it and the least structure around it.

A planning point raised in a year-end meeting has a window. Say it in June about a March year end and it is useful; raise it the following March and the opportunity has gone. Nothing in a normal practice connects the moment the point is raised to the moment it becomes urgent.

A register fixes this cheaply. When a point is raised, record it with the date it becomes time-critical. The follow-up fires then, not now.

Two cautions. The follow-up should prompt a conversation rather than restate the advice, because circumstances change and advice given in June may not hold in February. And the record of what was advised, and when, belongs on the client file rather than in a scheduling tool.

Building it with CodeWords

CodeWords connects to more than 3,000 integrations, and the connection is made once and reused.

1. Open CodeWords and start a new automation.
2. Describe what should happen in plain language to Cody, the automation builder: the kinds of loop you track, who owns each, when each becomes due, and what should happen when one does.
3. Authorize the connections to your practice management system, wherever proposals and notes live, and the channels your clients have agreed to.
4. Describe the exceptions: a client who has already responded, one in a live conversation with a partner, one who has asked not to be contacted about a particular thing, anyone whose circumstances have changed.
5. Start with one loop type, run it for a quarter, and check what the register says against what people remember.

You describe the outcome; Cody builds it, connects it, and deploys it. The free plan covers light use, with Pro at $39 per month and Business at $100 per month as usage grows; details are on the pricing page.

Follow-ups that are not reminders

Some of the most valuable contact a practice makes is not chasing anything.

A heads-up about something approaching. A client nearing the VAT registration threshold, a first payment on account they have not budgeted for. This is the contact clients remember, and it is predictable from data you already hold.

A check-in after something changed. A first employee, a property purchase, trading in another country. Each creates obligations they do not know about yet.

A confirmation that nothing is needed. A short message saying the quarter is done and nothing is required is the cheapest goodwill available.

These cost nothing to schedule and they change what the relationship feels like, since the alternative is a client who only hears from you when you want something.

Tone, and the line before a sales sequence

An accountancy practice is not a subscription business, and follow-ups that read like one damage the thing they are trying to protect.

Two or three contacts on a loop, then a person. Beyond that it stops being a reminder.

One subject per message. A follow-up carrying three unrelated asks gets none of them answered.

Nothing manufactured. Clients who deal with real deadlines all year recognise an invented one instantly.

Signed by somebody. A follow-up from a person reads differently from one from the firm, and the difference is larger than it sounds.

The client who has gone quiet

Silence is information and most practices do not act on it.

A client who has not been in contact for a full cycle, whose records arrive later each year, or who stopped asking questions they used to ask is often already partway out of the door. By the time a disengagement letter arrives from another firm the decision was made months earlier.

This one should never be automated past the first step. A flag that says "this client has gone quiet" is useful; an automated message asking how they are is not the intervention. A partner picking up the phone is.

What the marketing rules allow

Worth being precise, because a large part of most practices' client base falls on the stricter side of the line.

Under PECR, limited companies and limited liability partnerships are corporate subscribers, and marketing by electronic mail to them does not require consent. Sole traders and ordinary partnerships are treated as individual subscribers, so unsolicited electronic marketing to them needs consent or the soft opt-in, which requires that you obtained the details during a sale or negotiation, that you are marketing similar services, and that an opt-out is offered when you collect the details and in every message (ICO guidance). Where you cannot tell which a contact is, the ICO's position is to treat them as an individual subscriber.

Administrative messages about work you are engaged to do are a different thing from marketing, and the boundary matters. "We need your bank statements" is service. "We also offer payroll" is marketing, and it is governed by the rules above regardless of the channel it goes through.

Making it survive

Give every loop an owner and a due date, or it is a note rather than a register.

Close loops explicitly, including the ones that end in no. An unclosed loop with no outcome is the same as no register.

Check for a live conversation before any send. Nothing undermines a relationship faster than an automated nudge landing mid-discussion.

Record what was advised on the file, not in the tool that scheduled the reminder.

Review the register quarterly with a person looking at it, since a register nobody reads decays within two months.

Limits worth knowing about

A follow-up cannot rescue a proposal the client never wanted, and treating every silence as winnable wastes attention.

Persistence past three contacts converts almost nothing and costs goodwill you will want later.

Advice has a shelf life. A point raised eight months ago may no longer hold, so the follow-up prompts a conversation rather than repeating it.

Some loops are not yours to close. A client waiting on a third party cannot be moved by a message to the client.

Automation will not tell you which relationships are in trouble. It can flag the silence; only a person can work out what it means.

What to build first

One register, one loop type, and the obvious candidate is proposals. Every one that has been sent, who owns it, when it was sent, and what happened, including the losses. Three short follow-ups attached, and an explicit close either way.

Two habits make the difference. Ask for a decision rather than a reply, because a clear no releases attention a maybe keeps consuming. And record the outcome of every loop you close, since a year of those is the only honest picture you will get of what your practice is actually converting and at what price.

Frequently asked questions

What is a follow-up register?

A shared list of everything the practice owes clients, with an owner and a due date for each. Without it, follow-ups depend on somebody remembering, which means they happen in quiet months and not busy ones.

How many times should a proposal be followed up?

Two or three times over about three weeks, each adding something rather than repeating. Then ask for a decision either way and close it.

Why ask a client to say no?

Because a closed loop stops consuming attention and a recorded loss tells you something about your pricing. A proposal that might still be alive is worth less than one you know is dead.

How do I follow up advice given months ago?

Record the point when it is raised along with the date it becomes time-critical, and fire the follow-up then. The message should prompt a conversation rather than restate the advice, since circumstances may have changed.

Do follow-ups need consent?

Service messages about work you are engaged to do are not marketing. Marketing another service is, and for sole traders and ordinary partnerships that needs consent or the soft opt-in, because PECR treats them as individual subscribers.

What should never be automated?

Anything responding to a client going quiet, anything that amounts to advice, and anything about fees in a difficult period. Flagging these for a person is useful; sending them automatically is not.

How often should the register be reviewed?

Quarterly, by a person, looking at what is open and what has aged. A register nobody reads stops being accurate within about two months.

Related reading

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• Which channel is the client file
• Tax season as a queueing problem