Inside the Client Experience: Why Engagements Still Break Down—and What Firms Must Do Next

Despite best intentions and continual efforts to improve, many accounting firms remain blindsided by one persistent issue: engagements that stall, stretch, or silently deteriorate.

The problem isn’t talent. It’s not capacity. It’s not even technology.

It's a misalignment between clients and firms. And most firms are underestimating just how much it’s costing them.

In Suralink’s Inside the Client Experience Report, we surveyed finance and accounting professionals across North America to better understand what it’s actually like to go through an audit, tax, or advisory engagement from the client side. What we found was a consistent story: clients are overwhelmed, communication breaks down frequently, and fragmented processes make even straightforward work harder than it needs to be.

These breakdowns don’t just cause inefficiency. They erode trust, drag down perceived value, and create churn risk that many firms never see coming.

This is the Client Readiness Gap—the silent disconnect between firms and clients that turns even strong relationships into strained ones.

The data throughout this guide reflects the broader accounting industry—not just Suralink’s firm and client users. To capture an accurate picture of today’s landscape, we intentionally surveyed beyond our own customer base, ensuring a true industry-wide perspective from the client’s point of view.

Let’s dive in.

Clients Know What They Want. They’re Just Not Getting It.

Clients don’t come to accounting firms looking for magic. They want oversight, compliance, and third-party validation. And firms, for the most part, deliver on those core services.

But technical execution is no longer enough.

According to our data:

• 74% of clients engage firms for financial accuracy and oversight
• 70% seek regulatory compliance and external validation
• But only 10% say the value they receive is excellent compared to the cost

This gap isn’t about whether firms get the work done. It’s about how the work gets done—and how clients experience the process.

When asked what actually drives satisfaction, clients were clear:

• 77% say on-time, on-budget delivery is essential
• 67% want firms to reduce the effort required from their internal teams
• 56% say satisfaction comes down to clear communication with minimal back-and-forth

In other words: clients expect accounting firms to be execution experts and operational partners. Firms that only check the compliance box are falling behind.

The Engagement Experience Is Still Too Heavy

Even when firms meet deadlines, many engagements still feel like a burden on clients.

Balancing the demands of the engagement with day-to-day priorities is difficult; in fact, 75% of clients say this is a significant pain point.

And the friction doesn’t stop there:

• 52% say gathering and submitting documentation is a challenge
• 49% struggle to respond to follow-up questions efficiently

Engagements, for many clients, feel like a second job—stacked on top of their already full-time responsibilities. And when firms don’t acknowledge or support that reality, frustration builds quickly.

Unclear Requests Are Killing Momentum

The number one frustration clients cite isn’t pricing or deliverables. It’s unclear or time-consuming information requests, cited by 82% of respondents.

That frustration is amplified by other common issues:

• 53% say engagement team turnover adds friction
• 34% report poor communication or lack of transparency
• 60% say clearer communication would significantly improve efficiency
• 65% say reducing back-and-forth would make the biggest impact

These are avoidable problems with outsized consequences.

When requests aren’t clear, clients don’t respond correctly the first time. That leads to delays, rework, and wasted hours on both sides of the table.

Worse, it chips away at the firm’s perceived competence, even when the core work is technically sound.

The Real Cost of Miscommunication

One of the most striking findings in this year’s report is how frequent and disruptive communication misalignments are during engagements.

• 62% of clients say miscommunications occur five or more times per engagement
• These misalignments increase the time required to complete the engagement by 14%
• They also reduce time available for core responsibilities by 12%
• And they increase the likelihood of clients considering switching firms by 12%

These aren’t isolated breakdowns. They’re recurring symptoms of a broader problem: a lack of process clarity and communication ownership.

And when clients fail to complete a request correctly the first time, it’s rarely due to negligence:

• 70% say the request was unclear or lacked sufficient detail
• 47% say it felt inconsistent with prior discussions
• 38% say they couldn’t get timely clarification from their engagement team

Every one of these points is a solvable problem—if firms take ownership of how they communicate.

Where Clients Spend Most of Their Time During an Engagement 

Firms often treat request portals as a backend tool. Clients don’t.

• 68% of a client's time during an engagement is spent using a firm's request management or document exchange solution
• 51% say they find it frustrating when requests are split between email and the portal
• 78% say a confusing or email-heavy process could make them switch firms

This is the part of the engagement where clients live. It’s not peripheral—it’s the core experience.

What clients want is simple. 77% want clear, easy-to-understand instructions for each request

This isn’t about adding more tools. It’s about making the one tool clients use most work better for them.

Three Steps Firms Can Take Right Now to Close the Client Readiness Gap

1. Communicate Clearly and Consistently

Firms don’t need to overhaul every engagement process. But they do need to standardize how they communicate.

Start by:

• Providing complete, consistent instructions for every request
• Consolidating communication into a single, centralized portal
• Automating reminders to reduce the need for manual follow-up
• Offering access to prior-year documents to reduce confusion
• Setting internal SLAs for how quickly teams respond to client questions

If clients are unsure about what’s being asked—or can’t get answers—they’ll disengage. That’s not a technology problem. It’s a process leadership problem.

2. Invest in Technology That Works for Clients, Not Just Firms

A modern portal isn’t just a file drop. It’s the operational hub of the engagement—and the #1 place where clients assess ease, clarity, and professionalism.

To improve it:

• Eliminate email-based requests
• Ensure every request flows through a consistent system
• Streamline how clients upload, tag, and organize documents
• Make past submissions easily accessible
• Use automation or AI to validate document completeness

Clients are open to modern solutions—94% say they’re comfortable with AI in engagements, and 91% want a tool that confirms whether they’ve submitted the right document. 

3. 3. Align with the Realities of Client Workload

Even the best request system will create frustration if it ignores client capacity.

Firms need to start by asking:

• Who’s handling this on the client side?
• What’s their bandwidth?
• What other deadlines are they juggling?

Then adjust:

• Give realistic turnaround times
• Batch requests to minimize disruptions
• Train staff to recognize when a client is overwhelmed
• Use data to adapt the process, not just track it

Empathy isn’t a soft skill—it’s a strategic one. And the firms that embrace it will build stronger, longer-lasting client relationships.

Why This Matters Now

The timing for addressing the Client Readiness Gap couldn't be more urgent.

Firms are operating in an environment where margins are tightening, expectations are rising, and trust is harder to earn—and even harder to keep. What once passed as a “typical engagement delay” is now seen as a red flag. 

Clients have more options, higher standards, and clearer ideas of what a modern engagement should look like.

They’re not just comparing firms anymore. They’re comparing experiences.

The firms that respond with speed, clarity, and empathy—supported by intuitive tools and repeatable processes will gain a measurable advantage in retention, referrals, and realization rates.

And that starts by seeing the gap for what it is: not a client problem, but a firm opportunity.

Get the Full Data: Download the 2025 Client Experience Report

This guide shares the highlights—but it’s just the beginning.

The full Inside the Client Experience Report breaks down the data across every phase of the engagement lifecycle, with detailed charts, survey insights, and actionable recommendations for firm leaders, engagement teams, and operations professionals.

Inside the full report:

• Why 30% of engagements still miss budget and timeline targets
• What 60% of clients say they wish their firms understood about their business
• How firms can reimagine their request processes with modern, AI-assisted tools
• What it actually takes to turn clarity and collaboration into a competitive advantage

Download the full report here to dive deeper into the trends—and start closing the Client Readiness Gap for good.

For related reading, check out:

• What Most Firms Get Wrong About Collaboration (3 Myths)