How do accounting firms get more reviews and referrals?

Most accounting firms grow on word of mouth and almost none of them do it on purpose. The referrals happen by luck, the reviews trickle in, and the firm calls it a strategy.

Why this matters more for accountants than most #

Choosing an accountant is a trust decision, and trust decisions run on proof from other people. Before a business owner calls you, they check. They ask a friend, and increasingly they ask Google or an AI, and both lean on what other clients have said.

So reviews and referrals are not vanity. They are the evidence that decides whether you are even on the list. A firm with none is invisible at the exact moment a buyer is choosing.

Ask every client, the same way, every time #

The reason firms get few reviews is not that clients are unwilling. It is that nobody asks, or someone asks occasionally, awkwardly, when they remember.

Fix that with a routine. Pick the natural high point, usually just after you have delivered a good outcome, and ask then, the same way, for every client. A short, specific request beats a vague one. And ask every client, not only the ones you expect to rate you well: you can choose when you ask, but picking who based on the rating you expect is review gating, and it breaches the Australian Consumer Law. Here is the rule, and the case behind it. The firms that do this do not get lucky with reviews. They get them predictably, because the asking is built in, not left to memory.

Make referring you effortless #

A happy client will refer you, but only if it is easy. Make them work for it and they mean to and never do.

Tell clients plainly the kind of work and the kind of business you are looking for, so they can spot a match. Give them something simple to pass on. And do not forget your best referrers are often other professionals, the bookkeepers, brokers and lawyers who see the same clients, so those relationships are worth tending on purpose.

Keep it genuine, because the code requires it #

Accountants work under a professional code, and it does not stop you asking for reviews. It stops you dressing them up.

No invented praise, no guaranteed-outcome language, no superlatives you cannot stand behind. That is not a constraint to resent. Genuine, specific reviews from real clients are more persuasive than glossy claims anyway, and they are the only kind that survive a buyer who is checking. Ask honestly, publish faithfully, and the code and good marketing point the same way.

Where this fits #

Reviews and referrals are the Recommend loop of the wider system, and they are cheapest when the clients you already have are happy. Start with keeping clients longer, then read the general version: turning clients into reviews and referrals.

Questions accountants ask #

Is it against the code to ask only happy clients for a review?

Asking is fine, and you can choose when. What you cannot do is pick who to ask based on the score you expect: that is review gating, and it breaches the Australian Consumer Law, quite apart from the accountants' code on honesty. Ask every client the same way. Here is the detail, and the case behind it, in our review-gating explainer.

Reviews or referrals, which should we focus on?

Both, because they do different jobs. A referral arrives pre-trusted from someone the buyer knows. A review is the public proof a stranger checks before they call. A firm wants a steady supply of each.

What is the highest-return first step?

Build the ask into your process so it happens every time, not when someone remembers. Consistency, not effort, is what turns a trickle of reviews into a reliable stream.