Although customers are the most important aspect of any business – in financial services – it’s truly all about the clients. If the customer is not happy with how someone handles their finances, they are likely to go elsewhere for a better experience.
At the same time, fee compression demands financial advisors to achieve more with less. And throughout, customer expectations continue to reach heights. In this blog post, we will be revealing expert-recommended ways how financial advisors can reshape their customer experience to get more clients.
Anticipate Your Client’s Needs
To begin with, it’s vital to anticipate your client’s needs in order to serve them the best. Especially for fiduciaries like financial advisors, customer service is dependent on individualized service with the use of tools like validated behavioral insights. Modern finance planners are investing in tech tools to understand their client’s needs and behavior even before the client knows what he wants.
Provide Access to Information
Oftentimes, clients are hardly aware about the breadth of investment opportunities they can utilize. Gone are the days when private markets used to entertain only ultra-high-net-worth investors. Today, there are plenty of investment options for everybody. Thus, financial planners should educate their clients about their investment options through digestible content and resources.
Promote Holistic Financial Success
Many advisors focus on advertising investment options or products they can get paid for. But that’s not how you build a long-term relationship with your clients, suggest experts. You should focus more on providing a holistic financial wellness plan for your clients to connect on a personal level. For this, financial planners can collaborate with third parties that provide wealth advisor solutions for the different investment needs of their clients. Thus, keep your service more holistic than product or investment-focused.
Digitize Your Services
In 2022, it’s more than crucial to go digital for any business, including finance. Requiring physically signed documents adds hindrance to what could be a simple and quick digital process. Advisors need to understand that customers are no longer interested in compromising their comfort and convenience, and businesses are offering them services at the cost of just a click. Thus, firms must provide their clients with an app to complete all the documentation formalities. In addition, location-based barriers should be removed by normalizing the option of virtual meetings for all.
Charge a Fair Fee
Advisors should be transparent to justify their fee structure along with the pricing differences between clients who book similar services under management levels. Whether it’s tax planning, investment management, or estate planning – pricing models should reflect a client’s usage pattern. And remember, there is no one-size-fits-all approach in the financial services industry. Thus, financial advisors should charge a fair and justifiable fee to retain existing clients and get new ones.
Let’s Take a Recap
A major mistake financial planners make is not acting in the best interest of their clients. Hence, it is recommended to work with a fiduciary advisor who knows and has a legal responsibility to cater to the client’s needs and expectations throughout the service journey.