We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Laura Valle a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Laura, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Showing clients you appreciate them is something I think most folks want to do – but it’s not always clear how to do it in a meaningful way. What’s one of the best examples of client appreciation you can share with us?

A few years ago, together with 5 colleagues from Public Accountants, we formed a consultancy in Argentina to train professionals in Economic Sciences where we provide training and diplomas to people who have already graduated from any of the Economic Sciences careers, but especially to Public Accountants.
Some time ago we had the case of an Accountant who had purchased one of our courses and had not attended the first 3 classes. We tried to communicate with her several times by telephone, via email, social networks but we were unable to find her. According to our policies, if a student misses 3 consecutive times without justification, the course is considered abandoned and the money is not refundable nor can they recover those classes in subsequent training sessions.
We sent her a final email commenting on the cancellation of her subscription and the non-refund of the money as established by our policies.
A few days later we received an email from her responding to our last email saying that her father had died, that she thought it was a shame that we had unsubscribed, and that she was going to make our attitude known on all the social networks that she had reach and among her colleagues, among other things.
As soon as we received that email we contacted her, we managed to get her to answer the phone, she was really very angry. First we gave him our condolences for what happened to her father, we told her about our policies that were quite rigid but that since his case was special, we were going to make the exception of giving her the possibility of starting the training again the next time it started, which was in a few weeks.
As we noticed that she was also not satisfied with this response, we stayed with the team thinking about what we could offer her so that she would be happy and also recommend us. We were looking on her social networks that she wrote articles and really liked to make reels explaining about tax issues, so it occurred to us to invite her to give a class together with us in the cycle where she could not attend the first classes, on a topic that she chooses from the syllabus and in that way not be completely left out of the training and also be able to do something that she liked at this very difficult time for her. She quickly accepted our invitation, we prepared the topic together, she presented it and not only was she happy with this but she began to recommend us among her acquaintances and now we invite her to teach that class in all our trainings.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a Public Accountant, graduated from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2010. Furthermore, with great pride I was appointed Professor of that same institution in a tax subject for several years and then they called me to teach in the final Seminar, which students must do in order to obtain their degree. I am an editor of current articles for professionals in economic sciences and I worked for 18 years in a company dedicated to the training of Public Accountants, creating management systems for Professionals in Economic Sciences, among other services that we provide to these professionals.

Together with my teacher of a tax subject and 4 other colleagues, also university professors, we have decided to create a virtual training consultant for professionals in economic sciences.
What stands out from other consulting companies, in our opinion, is the way in which we provide training and the closeness with the student. This is what they always highlight to us in the end-of-course surveys.
Our training is interactive, we involve all students in each class with different topics, we let them also tell how they perform certain tasks in their jobs, we give them prominence and that makes them very enthusiastic to continue with the rest of the course.

With our training, professionals are updated on tax and pension issues in a different way, not with the typical long and boring course, but with unusual activities, which makes them learn in a way that they will never forget and incorporate that knowledge quickly.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

In my case, our clients are our students, and we stay connected with them by periodically sending them small articles on tax news so that they are up to date to carry out their profession. These information capsules are something that ellps highly value since they let us know by responding to the emails and, those who continue taking courses with us, highlight it in the end-of-course surveys, within the question if they would recommend us to a friend or family member and why.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

I met my great partner in the creation of this whole adventure at the University, when I was studying to become a Public Accountant. She was my teacher in one of the last subjects of my degree. She had one of the highest averages in her class so at the end of the course she told me that when I graduated she wanted me to teach with her at the University. I really felt great pride in that moment. And so it was, when I graduated I contacted her and started teaching classes at the University with her. After a few years of working together and seeing that we were a very good team, we decided to go for more and provide training to graduates so that they are constantly updated to practice their profession. It was at that moment that we created this update consultancy for Economic Sciences professionals.
The rest of the team was formed with students from our subject, graduates of the Public Accounting program with good grades, and who were called to be professors at the university.

Contact Info:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-valle-294b9749
• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/@marianelaglopez

Image Credits

3 of the 4 photos were taken at different trainings I gave, and the last one is a photo in the office.