Communication leads to understanding, loyalty and happy clients

Keeping in regular contact with your clients is essential to ensure satisfaction, loyalty, repeat business and referrals. The contact most valued by your clients is of course the face-to-face meeting or client review but this is something you can only do profitably a certain number of times every year, perhaps quarterly for your higher net worth or ‘A’ segment client, and half-yearly or annually for ‘B’ clients. With this in mind how else can you maintain regular contact with your clients to keep your brand and services at the forefront of their minds? And how can you communicate and nurture relationships with more of your client-base profitably?

Let’s assume that ideally we aim to contact our clients up to 24 times a year to keep a regular communication channel open and to reinforce our brand, values and the great service that we offer. It may seem a lot but with a little effort and using the wealth of different communication technology available it soon becomes easy achieve this. People’s circumstances change quickly and often they forget to tell you about it so implement a communication plan to make sure you are always kept in the loop.

Get your team involved
Client communication in your organisation doesn’t always have to come from the adviser. In fact having different people in your organisation contacting your clients builds your company profile and loyalty to your company and brand, not just you as an individual. Account management calls are a simple and effective way to continue the conversation with your client long after the initial advice process or ‘sale’ is completed. Your client will value a proactive call from your client service team, administrator or paraplanner to see if there is anything further they need or to talk to them about how else you might help.

Quarterly Newsletters
Client newsletters or email bulletins are a great way to touch your clients with minimal effort or expense. A well-worded informative quarterly newsletter positions you and your firm as the experts in your field that you are and is a great way to keep your clients informed about what you are up to, how your business is performing or tell them about new services you are offering. Include articles, news, results of your client feedback programme, and personal stories to make your newsletters inspiring and interesting for your clients.

Email Bulletins
Tailor email bulletins to meet the interests of the different profiles of clients you deal with: are they sophisticated high net worth investors who would be interested in market commentary, business owners looking for tax planning information, or clients who are inexperienced in financial matters so looking for ideas on money management or budgeting? Targeting the information you send out to clients demonstrates that you understand who they are and that you can offer specific services to meet their needs. Offer monthly email bulletins to your clients, perhaps even weekly to your high net worth clients and capture their permission to do this as part of your factfind or initial enquiry process.

Client Feedback
Proactively asking for client feedback is an effective two-way method of communication that lets your clients know that you are serious about service excellence. Asking for feedback after each interaction with a client is not only best business practice, it also brings with it a wealth of other benefits including happier more loyal clients, more motivated staff, marketing opportunities, more referral business and great testimonials. It also gives you some strong marketing material to include in your newsletters and other company literature but publishing your feedback results.

Online Servicing
What better way to keep your clients informed and involved than 24 hour access to your brand through online servicing. Giving your clients access to their portfolio online is a great way to keep them interested in what you do, and if it includes their bank accounts, credit card statements and spending habits then you are giving them something that they are likely to log into every week. Incorporate a messaging function to allow you to chat to your clients and suddenly a whole new virtual world opens up allowing you to communicate with your client and give them a complete picture of their financial life.

Social and Internet Media
Social networking sites are a great way to keep a regular dialog going with your client so ask your clients whether they are signed up for any of the social networking sites like Twitter or Linked In. These offer opportunities for your to engage in a dialog with your clients, show your expertise, or drive traffic to your website or blog…and the easy part is that your posts can be short, making it a quick and easy way to get your message across. Try it and see the impact that 140 characters can have on your clients. You could also try writing regular weekly blog posts on your website to keep your clients updated and informed, with free blogging tools available such as Blogger or Wordpress, getting your blog started is quick and easy.

Seminars or Networking Events
Getting a group of your clients in a room together is a great way to extend relationships and uncover new opportunities. Such events could be focused around a specific, topical theme or more general. Use events to educate your clients about financial advice or planning, pension matters, tax planning or investment strategies. Include a lighter more entertaining section and make sure your brand is featured in presentations and hand outs. You could even follow these up with a promotional offer while you have your client’s attention.

When you implement these different communication channels you will find that making contact with your clients 24 times a year becomes much easier; 4 quarterly newsletters, 12 monthly email bulletins, 4 client questionnaires, daily tweets, weekly blog posts, 24 hour access to online servicing …. Before too long your clients will look forward to and make time for your communications. Whatever contact approaches you use, the key is to keep it consistent; a structured contact and communication plan is a good idea to keep track of how you are communicating, when and who with. Put this in place and stick to it. Once you are in regular contact with your clients they are more likely to contact you as a result. You will create stronger relationships and cement your brand in your client’s mind.

Resolutions for 2010: Satisfied clients, better marketing and improved business results

As 2010 gets underway, businesses up and down the land are setting out the plans for the year, be that plans for growth, new services or retaining new clients. There's no room for complacency as we move out of recession and a strong brand and client experience will be critical to business success this year. Getting your business profile, brand and most importantly your client experience right takes effort and all too often the assumptions we make about how our clients want to be dealt with can be some way off the mark. So here are just a few resolutions to consider to help you strengthen and grow your business in 2010...

Resolution 1: Know your client....and really know them

For financial services firms, knowing your client is a core part of day to day business. But how far does your 'know your client' approach go? Your factfind tells you about your clients key information, their current holdings, attitude to risk, income and expenditure but when it comes to service approach there is much more you could be asking and here are just a few ideas...

• What communication methods do they prefer?
• Do they use the internet? Do they use email?
• What other technologies do they use?
• What about internet banking, site comparison sites or social networking?
• What are their favourite websites?
• Would they be interested in seminars?

Knowing all this in addition to those facts you need for financial advice or planning opens up new opportunities to communicate and service your clients.

Resolution 2: Ask for client opinions

Basing any plans, for marketing, communication or service proposition on guesswork works out to be a costly strategy if you get it wrong and so listening to what your clients tell you is all important. It ensures that you can shape what you do to directly meet the demands of your clients, a simple concept and one that works. Proactively ask for feedback from your client regularly, ideally after each interaction with them. That way you can really understand what they like or don't like and ensure that you can continue to shape your services to meet their requirements.

Resolution 3: Get ranked and get noticed

These days Google, Bing or Yahoo are more often than not the first places people will go to find out more about you or your business so it's vital that you keep your web presence up to date and interesting with new content. Make sure people can find out not just about what you do but what other people say about you. Publish feedback results, comments or testimonials on your website, on your blog or via social networks like Linked In or Twitter. Try and personify your website too so that the personalities in your organisation shine through, after all those looking for financial advice or planning services are buying a person, your expertise, your advice.

Resolution 4: Keep innovating

The world changes fast, especially where technology is concerned so keep on innovating, explore new technologies, change your service approach, try new communication methods, have a go at social networking. Simple solutions that are easy to get started with can make a huge difference in a short space of time. Don't be afraid to try something new and you will find that more opportunities will present themselves to you.

For more information on how FinQS can help you with this and more contact us on 01564 711153...

All aboard the big dipper...

Is it really that time of year again? It can't be, I'm nowhere near ready! Business is busy and these last few weeks have seen more new firms signing up to TCF Centre taking us over the 100 registered firms mark. Brilliant stuff! I can't believe we've come so far, it seems like only 18 months ago since I was hopping up and down with excitement having secured our very first pilot site...oh hang on it was only 18 months ago and I still hop up and down when we win new clients now! Doesn't time fly when you are spending every hour of every day building a new business, forgetting what weekends used to be like, with elated highs over the successes and tears of frustration over the failures, no matter how small! This I am sure must sound familiar to any business owner out there...they say life is a roller coaster and in the case of business life I think it's reminiscent of a ride on Nemesis, or maybe Oblivion in some cases!


All in all we've had more roundabouts than swings, and I look toward 2010 with a sense of optimism and excitement. Despite 2009 being a really tough year for many firms out there, I think 2010 brings new opportunities as we move closer to a profession that is more qualified, respected and understood. There's much work to be done to educate consumers on the value of independent financial advice and to make financial advice accessible to a wider range of people but lots of initiatives in this respect are already making in roads. And for technology providers like us the future brings huge opportunities....

Technology is progressing faster than a runaway ghost train and technologies like MS Silverlight will take business application useability to a new level. I truly believe that interfaces can be intuitive and user friendly. The days of cumbersome pop up dialogs, tabs within tabs within tabs, and clunky navigation are numbered...and no, it isn't smoke and mirrors.

We are also seeing a shift in the way clients are serviced. A shift from managing the client, to collaborating with the client, letting the client drive how you interact with them. This is exactly where innovations in technology solutions can help and also why it's so important to understand what your clients really think about what you do, how you communicate and the services you deliver.

And so as the festive season gathers momentum I'll be spending the last couple of weeks of 2009 working with more progressive financial advisory firms to make client feedback technology a core part of their service, marketing and communications approach and looking at new technology that is coming in the new year to change the way we communicate with and service our clients..... so all aboard and scream if you want to go faster!

If life hands you lemons, make lemonade

As a provider of an online client feedback solution I get asked a lot about the impact proactively asking for client feedback can have on PI Insurance. There’s a common misconception that asking for feedback is effectively ‘inviting complaints’. In truth the FSA does not necessarily consider negative feedback as a formal complaint but it is their definition of a complaint, and it’s literal interpretation, that seems to be causing some confusion amongst the IFA community and PI Insurers.

The FSA handbook defines a complaint as “any oral or written expression of dissatisfaction, whether justified or not, from, or on behalf of, a person about the provision of, or failure to provide, a financial service, which alleges that the complainant has suffered (or may suffer) financial loss, material distress or material inconvenience.”

It’s a fairly far reaching definition which, taken literally, may suggest that negative client feedback from solicited surveys and questionnaires could constitute a complaint. In fact the FSA have provided this wide definition for a specific reason. Having referred the issue to the FSA’s Policy department, they confirmed that “The Handbook definition of a "complaint" aims to ensure that firms are unable to justify a failure to deal with complaints on the grounds that the complainant did not present his grievance in a prescribed format (say, filling out a form), or did not explicitly say he was making a complaint; hence the definition is drafted quite widely. That is, if a customer contacts a firm to express his dissatisfaction, the firm should investigate the matter regardless of how it was communicated (email, letter, telephone etc) and regardless of whether the customer specifically refers to his concerns as a "complaint". However, this does not necessarily mean that any negative feedback should be regarded as, and dealt with, as a complaint."

It seems that the FSA are simply trying to prevent firms from wriggling out of their obligations to deal with a complaint by suggesting that the complaint did not reach them through a formal procedure, hence their rather broad definition. This ensures that firms must deal with complaints in whatever format they arrive in. As far as client questionnaires are concerned, what the FSA are in fact saying is that negative feedback should be taken as seriously as if it were a complaint and acted upon or investigated accordingly. What they are not saying is that every negative response to a client feedback questionnaire should be formally dealt with under a firm’s complaints procedure. It comes down to common sense as “Customer satisfaction questionnaires tend to ask the individual about his or her experience with the firm in generic terms, often with a focus on customer services. We need to consider whether the customer would reasonably expect an individualised response, or any response at all, to his or her feedback. In most cases, they probably would not - certainly not where the feedback is anonymous.”

Proactively asking for client feedback can bring huge rewards to a firm. Of course you should not simply ignore negative feedback, after all it helps you to continually improve what you do and everyone knows that if you can turn around a client who has expressed dissatisfaction with your service by dealing with their comments quickly and fairly then you will gain one of your most loyal clients. Any feedback provided by your clients should be monitored, understood and most importantly acted upon where necessary; whether it’s from a formal questionnaire process or indeed more informal ad hoc comments that are received.

It’s good business practice to find out what your clients think about what you do. Implementing a client feedback process where feedback is requests after each interaction with a client can help mitigate risks, ensuring that firms can quickly act upon any negative feedback before it escalates to a complaint and this is something that PI Insurers should look favourably upon.

According to the FSA, “Only in unusual circumstances would feedback on customer satisfaction questionnaires constitute a potential complaint - say, if the questionnaire specifically asks if the client would like the firm to look into a particular point of dissatisfaction and provide a response, or provides any other indication that it is a vehicle for airing specific grievances on which the firm is expected to act.”

So don’t be afraid to ask for feedback, it makes good business sense. Always notify your PI Insurer but challenge them if they suggest that you could be inviting complaints. This is not the case and in fact from a PI perspective client feedback can help mitigate risk, especially if you can be alerted to negative feedback as it is received so that you can deal with it immediately. This means that for a client feedback process to really work you need to ensure that you can manage it and monitor feedback effectively, and most importantly you can take action where it is needed. This way you can deal with any negative comments or concerns as they arise; you can be responsive to your clients; you can make use of positive feedback for testimonials and referrals; you can confirm your client proposition.

Client feedback is a fantastic business development tool, manage it properly and you will satisfy the requirements of your business, the requirements of your PI Insurer and the requirements of the regulator.