As partner and head of HLB Mann Judd Perth’s well-established business services division, Litsa Christodulou believes her many accolades can be attributed to one key feature: responsiveness.
Litsa received her fifth consecutive nomination for Best Accountant in the 2021 Client Choice Awards, a national award she has now won three times – 2018, 2020 and again this year – making her the most nominated accountant in Australia within the category.
Having joined the firm in 1990, she has seen the client base grow and diversify, initially servicing parts of the medical sector, before expanding to include key Perth-based sectors including building and construction.
Initially only offering basic services such as indemnity insurance for doctors, clients then started requesting other business advice, and now offer the full suite of services, from back office, tax planning and assisting doctors on how to run their practices. As the
practices of these initial clients grew, so did Litsa’s career, becoming a Partner within the firm in 2003.
Getting to know clients and their businesses is critical to the service offering, and establishing a trusted adviser relationship.
Last year, it was all about keeping clients afloat, and reassuring them that they had sound professional advice on hand by communicating regularly. At the beginning of COVID, Christodulou said there was much concern from doctors in particular who relied on their surgeries to survive, as well as panic within building and construction.
Of immediate priority were clients who could be eligible for the Federal Government’s JobKeeper program, and she contacted these personally by phone, and emailed other clients who were interested in more information about legislative changes.
Other key client communications distributed by Litsa and her team, such as those distributed at the time of the Federal Budget, are tailored for each client with detail on how any measures introduced could impact on that particular business. Communication, she says, needs to be at more than just a superficial level, and has to be tailored and targeted.
In addition to taking out the Best Accountant category, Litsa also remains the only accountant in Australia to have personally received a Net Promoter Score of 100 by clients. The achievement was confirmed during the surveying period in June last year.
At a firm-wide level, HLB Mann Judd also won Best Professional Services Firm (revenue $50 – $200 million) and Best Accounting & Consulting Services Firm (revenue $50 – $200 million) at this year’s Client Choice Awards.
The Awards are based on client votes for professional services firms in Australia and New Zealand, which rate firms’ brands and performance in delivering services on a range of criteria. The client ratings are independently researched by Beaton Consulting + Research.
This is the seventh win as Best Accounting Firm for HLB Mann Judd, and the second time it has won Best Professional Services Firm which includes engineering, law and accounting firms in the category.