In the second article of The Quiet Client series, we discuss the best of client sentiment - what they rate highly about their adviser. Therein the pitfalls, traps and opportunities, to guide you to deliver the experience your clients are looking for and expect.
Since the launch of our CATScan service over 20 years ago, we have achieved a consistent response rate of 30 - 35%. It seems clients are more than willing to provide their feedback (they just have to be asked).
Relationship trumps everything else
‘Relationship’, closely followed by ‘Staff’ have been the highest rated of the performance areas we ask clients to assess – perhaps not surprising given the nature of financial advice where trust is a ‘must have’. You are advising, planning and managing your client’s financial future after all!
71% of clients believe that they have close business contact with their adviser. This is a key finding as the following graph shows. For every Key Performance Indicator, clients who think that they have a close contact rate, on average, rate significantly higher than those who do not think so.
Using the data we’ve captured over the years, we’ve found that converting close business contact into a meaningful, longer term sustainable relationship requires a few key ingredients:
- Ensure the "R" in your CRM refers to "relationship"
There’s so much more to developing and maintaining a quality relationship than products and performance.
It’s ironic that in our industry where the quality of the relationship sits at the top of ‘best practice’, only 4% of practices are holding 20 or more individual pieces of information on each of their key clients. A third (35%) still store fewer than 15 data points, and quite often it's the more personal, key relationship-building information that's missing – you know, the ‘stuff’ that’s important to them – hobbies, community activities, children’s details, favoured charities, aspirations, dreams and so on.
Needless to say - this information should be maintained and updated on a regular basis.
Clients don’t care about how much you know, until they know how much you care.
2. Engaging with your clients on their terms, not yours
Is your communication written in the client’s language (or yours)? To most older clients, properly constructed sentences, punctuation, spelling and grammar are still important and this applies regardless of the communication vehicle. And don’t assume older clients are not tech-savvy. Many are just as comfortable with online blogs, posts, vlogs and video conference calls as they are with letters, emails and face-to-face meetings.
The importance of matching your message to the audience remains absolutely critical.
When surveyed through CATScan, 34% of clients gave their status as ‘couple’ not ‘Mr’ or ‘Mrs’…..it’s important to them and it’s an indicator for you as to how they like to be addressed through your regular communications and meetings. Of course, both should be invited to your events – be they in-person or virtual.
Always be mindful of your client’s preference for the how, where and when of meetings. Indeed, it will most likely change over the years, so take every opportunity to check in from time to time and ask them what’s their current preference.
3. Enhancing the client relationship through your staff
As already noted, Staff are highly rated by clients. This won’t come as a surprise to business owners given that their people are invariably the first port of call when clients call or contact the office. They will know your clients in some ways better than you!
As already noted, Staff are highly rated by clients. This won’t come as a surprise to business owners given that their people are invariably the first port of call when clients call or contact the office. They will know your clients in some ways better than you!
To support and otherwise recognise the importance of your staff in their daily interactions with your clients:
- Ensure you introduce all of your key staff to your clients - if your team is one of your greatest assets, make sure they are not your practice’s best kept secret. Even if they’re working from home.
- Continually promote your team. Publish their names and photos on your website, encourage them to author/contribute articles for your blog posts or newsletters, have them speak at your client webinars/seminars and develop a “who’s who in the zoo” contact flyer that you can include in your client onboarding material.
- Make sure you are not the problem. Be disciplined and immediately delegate all administration calls/queries to the appropriate member of your team. Only get involved if there is a problem or an issue is escalated to your level.
How strong are your client relationships?
If you want to go fast go alone but if you want to go far, go together with clients and staff as a united team.
Terry Bell, Owner, Business Health
We hope that this series of insight pieces drawn from the most recent analysis of Business Health’s CATScan* Client Satisfaction Survey data will help you to deliver the experience your clients are looking for and expect from you, their adviser.
The CATScan dataset now contains feedback from over 60,000 clients of Australian advisers. Unique and undeniable findings – premised on the fact that a quiet client isn’t necessarily a happy, engaged or satisfied client.
(*unless specifically stated otherwise, all stats and figures presented in this article have been derived from Business Health’s various data and research bases)
