November 2nd, 2011 by Dan Richards, ClientInsights.ca

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Four com­mu­ni­ca­tion imper­a­tives for today’s clients

I recently had the oppor­tu­nity to talk to a group of afflu­ent investors about rela­tion­ships with their advisors.

When it came to com­mu­ni­ca­tion, I was struck by how the things that would have impressed clients ten years ago are absolutely ho-hum today … and how quickly the stan­dards for effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion are changing.

Not that long ago, investors would have been happy with an annual meet­ing and quar­terly newslet­ters or mar­ket updates. While this model will still sat­isfy some, a grow­ing num­ber of investors are look­ing for some­thing more when it comes to com­mu­ni­ca­tion from their advisor.

Four new rules for effec­tive communication

There are a num­ber of themes that run through con­ver­sa­tions with investors about what they look for in terms of communication.

1. More fre­quent contact

Given volatile mar­kets and the sheer vol­ume of avail­able infor­ma­tion, a grow­ing num­ber of investors want to hear from their advi­sors much more fre­quently than in the past — for many clients, the tra­di­tional model of an annual review as being the sole form of per­sonal con­tact no longer cuts it.

2. Shorter con­ver­sa­tions … on their terms

At the same time as investors want to hear from their advi­sors more fre­quently, they are reluc­tant to invest an hour on each con­ver­sa­tion — they want shorter updates. Fur­ther­more, more and more want at least some of these con­ver­sa­tions in a time, place and fash­ion that is more con­ve­nient than trekking to their advisor’s office.

3. Rel­e­vant and customized

Some investors com­plain of generic, same-old con­tent in meet­ings. A grow­ing num­ber are look­ing for con­ver­sa­tions that reflect cur­rent issues and which are directly rel­e­vant to their sit­u­a­tion, address­ing the key ques­tion of “what does all this mean to me?”

4. From cred­i­ble sources

We all rec­og­nize that today’s con­sumer is not only bom­barded with much more infor­ma­tion but also more scep­ti­cal. As a result, some investors are look­ing for direct access to expert views and for a sense that the per­spec­tives they’re get­ting come from cred­i­ble, objec­tive sources.

Build­ing a foun­da­tion of per­sonal contact

Effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion starts with a foun­da­tion of per­sonal contact.

Let’s begin with the real­ity that while many things have changed, there’s still no sub­sti­tute for face to face con­tact. An annual face to face meet­ing is still essen­tial — and for impor­tant clients, you need to do what­ever it takes within rea­son to make that meet­ing hap­pen, in my opin­ion up to and includ­ing meet­ing at their home or office.

Pro­vided that you make it clear you’re mak­ing an excep­tion to accom­mo­date their sched­ules, if that’s what it takes to make it hap­pen, for sig­nif­i­cant clients I’d be open to occa­sional meet­ings on their premises.

Hav­ing the meet­ing is only the first step, though. Once face to face with clients, you need to ensure that you accom­plish a num­ber of key things:

1. Clients have to walk away reas­sured about your com­pe­tence and ability.

2. They need to feel lis­tened to and be con­fi­dent that the meet­ing revolves around their needs and agenda rather than yours.

3. Clients need to emerge feel­ing more pos­i­tive that they’re on tar­get to hit their long term goals, even if that entails mak­ing some mod­i­fi­ca­tions to their plan.

If you missed last week’s arti­cle, here’s how one advi­sor achieves this:

http://​www​.cli​entin​sights​.ca/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​t​e​n​-​m​i​n​u​t​e​s​-​t​o​-​m​u​c​h​-​m​o​r​e​-​e​f​f​e​c​t​i​v​e​-​c​l​i​e​n​t​-​m​e​e​t​i​ngs

Sup­ple­ment­ing face to face meetings

For many clients, even if you accom­plish all these goals in your annual review, that once a year meet­ing isn’t enough … they want more fre­quent, shorter updates.

That’s where reg­u­lar tele­phone meet­ings come in. Increas­ingly, advi­sors will need to sched­ule 15 or 20 minute tele­phone appoint­ments to answer ques­tions and update progress.

The key is to mak­ing these tele­phone reviews feel as much as pos­si­ble like face to face meet­ings. The arti­cle below from late last year goes into detail on using tech­nol­ogy to make those phone meet­ings work.

http://​www​.cli​entin​sights​.ca/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​a​-​b​e​t​t​e​r​-​a​l​t​e​r​n​a​t​i​v​e​-​t​o​-​f​a​c​e​-​t​o​-​f​a​c​e​-​m​e​e​t​i​ngs

For some clients, this level of per­sonal con­tact is suf­fi­cient — an annual face to face meet­ing and short quar­terly phone meet­ing would be absolutely sufficient.

Oth­ers, how­ever, are look­ing for more — on Thurs­day, I’ll cover the other two ingre­di­ents to effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion — rel­e­vant con­tent from cred­i­ble sources.

About ClientInsights.ca A breakthrough in client communication Not long ago, clients read what you sent them. Today that's changed. In the You Tube world we live in, many investors would prefer to hear from a portfolio manager directly. And instead of reading an article on tax saving or estate planning strategies, more and more Canadians would rather watch an expert discuss the topic. Clientinsights.ca was developed in response to these changes - to deliver information in the form that investors want to receive it. It provides over 150 short video interviews, each about 4 to 6 minutes - you can email them or watch a video along with clients to start a meeting. No matter how you use it, Clientinsights.ca is designed to help you take client communication to a higher level. Dan Richards Founder and CEO, Clientinsights.ca Read more from the author/contributor here.

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Tags: Annual Meeting, Conversations, Credible Sources, Current Issues, Effective Communication, Fashion, Imperatives, Investors, Market Updates, Personal Contact, Quarterly Newsletters, Relationships, Sheer Volume, Time Place, Traditional Model, Trekking, Volatile Markets
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