August 31, 2010
Looking for high impact experiences
There are other important implications from this research, beyond issues around client entertainment.
There are a bunch of things that need to happen to deliver on our basic commitments to clients – updating financial plans, rebalancing portfolios and scheduling ongoing communication and meetings.
I don’t intend to minimize the importance of delivering on these commitments – they have to happen.
The difficulty is that they don’t typically stand out – even if clients are initially pleased to have a plan in place, they quickly take that plan for granted as something that they’re entitled to as a matter of course.
So for top clients especially, periodically we need to supplement the “meat and potatoes” things that have to happen with something out of the ordinary that spices things up.
Earlier this spring, I wrote an article “Three words to blow clients away”, based on conversations with investors about the things that set their advisors apart.
In that article, I talked about an advisor who acknowledges the birth of his clients’ children or grandchildren by having the birth announcement blown up and put in a silver-plated frame – and then sends it to them with a note of congratulations.
When he visits clients at home, the birth announcement is often prominently displayed in their living room. Clients regularly bring up those birth announcements years after they receive them.
The cost of doing this? Under $100.
The key is to tap into experiences that are unique and personal for clients. As you think about how to provide “peak experiences” for your most important clients, things that will stand out and that they’ll remember (and maybe even talk to their friends about), you may want to revisit this article.
Structuring the timing of an experience
The other thing to remember is how you stage an interaction.
High-end restaurants often begin meals with a complimentary “amuse-bouche,” a bite-size appetizer.
A good idea in principle … but to maximize the impact, instead of an appetizer at the start of the meal, restaurants could consider offering a complimentary mini-dessert at the end … so that guests walk away remembering that.
Along the same lines, bearing in mind that what happens last is what clients remember most vividly, you need to structure meetings to end on a high point – the most positive thing that you want to have clients leave with should be last on the agenda.
One of the pioneers in the field of designing experiences to reflect the reality of human memory is Don Norman of Northwestern University. Here’s a blog on this topic.
And here’s the column in the New York Times that originally got me thinking about this topic, titled “Better Vacations through Science.”
Dan Richards conducts programs to help advisors gain and retain clients and is an award winning faculty member in the MBA program at the University of Toronto. To see more of his written and video commentaries and to reach him, go to www.clientinsights.ca.
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