Every time you meet with a client in per­son, send an email or speak on the phone, you have an oppor­tu­nity to impress. How do you con­tin­u­ally build client cap­i­tal? Are you con­stantly on the look­out for the needs and demands that your clients feel but have yet to voice? Deliv­er­ing excel­lent, value-added cus­tomer ser­vice requires not only the tal­ent to pro­duce strong finan­cial results, but also the lis­ten­ing skills and com­pas­sion that can deepen the rela­tion­ship from finan­cial advi­sor to trusted friend.With the seem­ingly end­less bar­rage of news about scan­dals and under­per­for­mance in the finan­cial sector, financial ser­vices pro­fes­sion­als should need to work to re-earn trust and prove their value when serv­ing cus­tomers. This is the time to be frank with your clients. Ask them whether they are happy with your ser­vices and solicit feed­back about how you can improve. Pass­ing around a sur­vey can offer a win­dow of insight into trends and pat­terns related to the prod­ucts you offer (or the ones you should be pro­vid­ing), your avail­abil­ity and clients’ sat­is­fac­tion. Based on those results, high­light a few areas where you and your employ­ees can improve — as well as those where you are per­form­ing well — and lay out a step-by-step strat­egy for how you can make those pos­i­tive changes.

Being recep­tive to con­struc­tive crit­i­cism and trans­par­ent about how you con­tin­u­ally strive for excel­lence is also likely to impress clients. Set up a feed­back email account or hot­line, and cre­ate a space on your web­site where web-savvy clients can sub­mit com­ments or com­plaints. Fol­low up on every­thing, acknowl­edge their feel­ings and explain how you plan to address the issues they shared.

Also con­sider the non-traditional ser­vices you can offer your clients. I just came across an arti­cle from The Wall Street Jour­nal that reports some advi­sors are going as far as to nego­ti­ate car deals for their clients, help­ing them search for new homes, review­ing col­lege tuition and finan­cial aid plans and more. But you don’t even have to go that far. Sim­ply pair­ing one client in need of legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion with one of your clients who is a lawyer can be enough. Have you noticed that a lot of the prospects and clients you talk to have con­cerns about their retire­ments? Con­sider set­ting up a free week­end sem­i­nar that offers sav­ing tips and other advice to help them plan for their later years. When you start to open up your mind to forms of cus­tomer ser­vice that span beyond the nor­mal call of duty for an advi­sor, you can dis­tin­guish your­self from the com­pe­ti­tion and make your­self indis­pens­able to your clients.

Anthony Lam has spent more than 20 years hon­ing his cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment skills. He has demon­strated his com­mit­ment to high-quality cus­tomer ser­vice in the retail, bank­ing and air­line indus­tries. Anthony is the Man­ager of Pro­gram Deliv­ery and Client Rela­tion­ships at The Covenant Group and coaches finan­cial advi­sors on client ser­vices through The Covenant Group’s finan­cial ser­vices train­ing.