INTRODUCTION:
In today’s video, I’m going to be talking with Matt Williams from Cypher.
Cypher is a fast growing, modern accountancy practice based in Oxford.
They have been using Melu since July 2019, primarily for lead generation.
It’s been very successful, so let’s get into it and hear about Matt’s experience.
Lee: So Matt, how did you find out about Melu in the first place? And once you started using us, what was the major benefit that you found?
Matt: So we spun out of a much bigger firm. So up until sort of four and a bit years ago, I was a partner at a sort of large independent firm, and they used Melu. So I’d known of you, because I dealt with all the new clients at that business. I knew Melu was a tool that was on the website, and delivered quite a lot of leads from their website.
They had lots of traffic, good SEO, all of that kind of stuff. So when we set up our brand new firm, brand new firm, brand new website, no Google ranking whatsoever, I wanted to make sure that every person that came to our website, that was a potential lead, kind of converted.
And so having Melu there to catch and put their arm around anyone that came on the website, was kind of the driving factor I guess.
Lee: Cool. Yeah, I remember actually when you first went live, you had links, or calls to action on your website for discovery calls.
Matt: Yeah.
Lee: And they would just go off to either Calendly, or your contact page. And we actually coded it so that they opened live chat, so you are actively getting people to book that discovery call, via a person through live chat, as opposed to how it would normally be done, which is just relying on them to book it themselves.
Matt: Absolutely. And that still works today. So I still have, I had a all on Tuesday, in fact, that came directly and, yeah, I love the fact that we have human beings on our website, like a human receptionist answering the phone. We’ve got a human dealing with anyone who comes to the website. And we get quite a lot of actual current clients, the existing clients that come and use you guys, as a not a concierge, “Could you just get someone to ring me?” And that’s not really why we put it on the site, but again, it’s looking after our customers, so we don’t pay anymore for that, and it only enhances our customer service, doesn’t it?
Lee: Yeah, I suppose it’s what suits them, isn’t it? And we get that with quite a lot of clients, where they expect existing clients to just call them, or email them, because they already know them. But quite a few do jump onto live chat, and just ask that question, “Oh I’m supposed to submit some tax returns or whatever. Can you tell so and so I’m sending it through?”
Matt: Yeah.
Lee: They just use it because it’s convenient, and I think that’s probably the key reason why businesses should have live chat, because it’s there for people that aren’t going to pick up the phone, or maybe don’t have time to even send an email. They just wanna send a quick message to someone.
Matt: Absolutely. And like I said, the call I had this week with a lead, they were chatting to one of your team on Sunday afternoon, so if they’d had picked the phone up, they wouldn’t have got us.
Lee: Yeah.
Matt: And actually, they had specifically Google searched ‘modern accountants’ which is kind of what we brand ourselves as. And the fact that then on the website, they could interact with a human in real time, at four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, or whenever it was, only enhanced our position as that kind of modern firm.
And then, yeah, we’ve had two conversations with them already. It feels like that’s one that we should win, and Melu, I don’t know what would’ve happened if we didn’t have Melu on there, but I know that because of Melu, we’ve had that conversation. And yeah, it’s something we absolutely would not turn off now, despite, it’s a monthly fee and in this modern world, where everybody’s getting caught by the cost of living, right, budgets are tight everywhere in every business, and it’s definitely the last thing we would turn off. We’d only turn it off if we’d turn the website off. That would be that. And we’re not ever going to get to that position.
Lee: Yeah.
Matt: But it’s just yeah, part of our marketing budget, and it’s that kind of final piece. And you know, we’ve picked up our, well at the time, our biggest client was paying us £1,600 a month*. That came through Melu, but it was a very difficult first interaction. The client had got the wrong end of the stick about something, and kind of, your guys dealt with them really well in the first instance, when it got a little bit, there was a bit of tension at the start, which kind of is strange and your guys jumped on it, and kind of turned it round.
And then we had a conversation whilst it was going on, and then we got them over the line into a face-to-face meeting, you know? Then the next meetings after that, since then, they’ve been good as gold as a client. But we would’ve definitely, if we didn’t have live chat, that would’ve fallen over at the first point, because our website wasn’t doing what it should have, and that would’ve been game over, you know?
Lee: Yeah, I remember that specifically actually, because I think it was about half 5, 6:00 PM on a Friday.
Matt: On a Friday, yeah.
Lee: And you guys had left the office, obviously, you know, it’s Friday, got to get home to your family, or whatever it is you’re doing. And they actually wanted a call at that point, didn’t they? And the operator was kind of like, “Well I can book you in for a discovery call on Monday.” And at first they weren’t too keen on that. They wanted like now.
Matt: Yeah.
Lee: But we managed to get them to book in for that call on the Monday. You took the call on Monday, I think it was like 10 o’clock or something. And from memory, correct me if I’m wrong, by the end of that day they had accepted your proposal, and then were a client.
Matt: Yeah. And it started weird. But even Monday morning, they were back on live chat. I don’t know if you know this actually, but the Monday morning they were back on live chat, because they’d taken the number down wrong, that they were ringing us on.
Lee: Right.
Matt: And so they went back on live chat, and just said, can we get Matt’s mobile number? And the guys ended up going through a process to do that, so that we ended up having that conversation. So it nearly fell down again. But that second interaction on the Monday, probably didn’t come to your attention, because it’s a completely run of the mill, mundane normal conversation that your guys are dealing with.
Lee: Sure.
Matt: But it definitely, yeah. And it’s interesting, because that client, I don’t think at any point realised that whoever they were talking to on live chat, they assumed they worked for our business.
Lee: Yeah.
Matt: And so many people do that. And we often have, you know, “Oh we’ve talked to Mark on your live chat, and he was really good,” and when the people come into the office, they wanna meet the Melu staff. And we’re like having to then explain how your business works. But the fact that they don’t realise that you are separate to us, I think is testament to how well your call handlers or chat handlers or whatever you call them.
Lee: Operators.
Matt: Operators, that’s right, that’s the term, how well they’ve learned our business, because it’s seamless.
Lee: Yeah. Well that’s fantastic to hear. I mean, that’s the ultimate goal for us, to act like part of your team, so that people just don’t feel that they’re talking to a third party. And I think that’s partly why we have all of our operators here in the UK, and they’re all employed by us, because we don’t want to outsource that, because that is going to tend to lead to quality dropping.
And you know, you’ll notice that as a client, you’ll notice the chats aren’t as good as they were. So that’s something we try and stay on top of. So I appreciate that you’ve noticed that.
Something else identified in that what you’re saying, I think certainly when we’ve been talking to other accountants about giving Melu a try, and we do a 14-day free trial, which you had, so you could test it out without any sort of risk. A lot of them, I think, just see the end cost, and think, “Well that’s too much,” but it’s the return on investment that comes from it, when you start getting those leads, and converting them. Presumably that one client being £1,600 a month, that’s eclipsing what you pay for Melu, by a long way. And hopefully that’s not the only client you’ve ever won through a live chat.
Matt: Oh, it certainly isn’t. I mean I, we’ve had, if we were to go through and to total it up, I’m sure we’ve had a phenomenal return on investment. But I don’t see Melu not as a lead-gen tool, that’s not quite, it’s part of our website budget. I view it exactly the same as I view our web development, and our SEO, and everything else.
And I wouldn’t have the website without having Melu on it now, because it fundamentally changed the service level of our website, by taking the chat guys out of it, and then we’re back to the same as everybody else.
So I guess if I’m coming new to it, the first thing you might see is just the cost. But I would urge anyone that’s in that mindset, to stop looking at the cost, and look at the benefit of it, which is that every single one of your visitors to your website, if they wish, can speak to a human.
Lee: Yeah.
Matt: And you could have, and whether, we have, still it’s growing, but we still have relatively few visitors, you know, I don’t know, couple of hundred a month. But the knowledge that the ones that that might convert, do convert, because they speak to someone.
Lee: Yeah.
Matt: It’s, if you look at the other way around, we very rarely get a lead to a discovery call that comes through Melu, that doesn’t convert.
Lee: Okay.
Matt: Now it doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t have converted, and wouldn’t have found us otherwise. But if they get to the point where they’ve had a conversation with someone, it’s like the first, you know, the discovery call should be the first date, right? It should be the first time we interact with that customer. But it’s not now, because with a Melu one, the first, the preamble, has all happened already. They feel like they’re a bit further along the line with us than they actually are, because they’ve had that, you know, it might be a two, three, four, five-minute chat with one of your guys, but they’ve asked some questions, they’ve had some feedback, they get it instantly, and then they come to us kind of pre-warm up.
Lee: Yeah.
Matt: And that makes a massive difference. So yeah, I understand it looks like it might be £x amount per month, and that’s just another extra bit on your marketing budget, but it really isn’t. The benefit is that every one of your customers, or potential customers, has a human that they can speak to on their website.
Lee: Yeah, well it’s helping with that stickiness, isn’t it? I think when someone’s looking for an accountant, you know, they’re going to put in you guys are based in Oxford, so they’re going to put in ‘accountants Oxford’ or ‘modern accountants, Oxford’, like that one you had last week. And they’re going to go through a list of stuff they’re getting on Google, there’s going to be a list of results. And hopefully if they’ve come onto your website, and they’ve had a chat with a real person, who of course they think is part of your business.
Matt: Yep.
Lee: And they know that something else is going to happen like a discovery call, like to think that they then wouldn’t hit back, and then find another accountant and try and do the same thing, because they’ve they’ve had that good experience.
Matt: Yeah.
Lee: And the reality is, only about 10% of websites in the UK have live chat. But a lot of that 10% is chat bots. And of course, the problem with chat bots is that most people just, you know, are kind of turned away by them, because they just don’t wanna talk to a computer, or a bot, or AI.
And you’ve probably seen in some posts that I’ve put on LinkedIn, saying about how every day we get over a hundred chats that start with, “Are you a real person, or are you a bot, are you AI?” And of course we are real people. So the conversation continues. But if you were to say, “No, we’re a bot, choose from one of these options, and we’ll help you,” you’ve lost them. They’re back in Google, they’re going to another accountant.
Matt: Yeah. And that’s it. Every accountant should be trying to build relationships with their clients. That’s the value of accountancy, as an industry, right, is that we get to know our clients, we become integral to their business, and then we can give them best advice.
Lee: Yeah, absolutely.
Matt: So why would you start that without a human interaction at the start? Why would you have a website that tells all this great stuff, “We are a human firm, and we are friendly, and approachable,” and then, “Oh, but you can’t speak to anyone right now, because it’s a Sunday afternoon. You have to wait until Monday.”
Lee: Yeah.
Matt: And then they’ll go to somewhere else, and then they will speak to that human, and they will move it on. And that’s the difference. That’s why I see it is as, we wouldn’t have the website without, you wouldn’t have a shop without someone behind the till, to talk to your customers, would you? That wouldn’t work.
Lee: No, absolutely. Brilliant. Well that’s fantastic feedback, Matt. I really appreciate it. Glad it’s working for you. Glad you’re getting a good return on investment, and thanks for taking your time to tell us about it.
Matt: Pleasure, anytime.
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