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A source of frustration for many advisors is the amount of time that’s consumed by mundane administrative requests – things that clients don’t value and chew up a ton of time.
But there is a way to take the time spent on routine matters and turn it into something that clients see as delivering quantifiable value. A veteran advisor told me how he did exactly that – and enhanced relationships with the accountants for key clients in the process.
The frustration of tax season
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Here’s how our conversation started:
“I have two assistants. Every year, during the first half of April their time is consumed responding to requests from clients and their accountants for information on cost bases for sales the previous year. And then of course there are all the tax slips that clients have misplaced and that need to be reissued. Complicating this process is the fact that where we deal with a client we have to talk on the client on the phone to record their verbal authorization.
I wouldn’t mind this so much if clients and their accountants didn’t take for granted all of our efforts to respond to their requests. In fact, I had to deal with an accountant for one of my top clients, who was irritated because it was going to take two days to answer one of his questions.”
While requests during tax season are an extreme example of administrative tasks against which clients place little or no value, this situation is typical – and it’s not just limited to clients. We all take basic service levels as our due; if we return a sweater to Sears that we got as a gift, we don’t give Sears any credit for accepting our return; we take it for granted that they’ll accommodate our request. Indeed, we get impatient if it takes an undue length of time to process the return.
Would it help if Sears gave us a brochure explaining all the steps they have to go through and the annual cost to them of processing returns? Unlikely – instead, we’d likely get irritated because our perception would be that Sears is making a big deal of something that we’ve come to expect as routine.
To get clients to see value in what we do, we have to go beyond what clients expect.
A check-in call to follow up
Imagine this scenario: You’ve returned the sweater to Sears. The next day you get an email from a customer service representative thanking you for doing business with Sears and expressing the hope that your return went smoothly and that you found something else that you liked. As well, the customer service representative invites you to email them should you have any questions or problems.
At one level, this is a routine follow up, but at another level it sends the important message that Sears cares about getting things right and ensuring that customers are satisfied. This advisor’s team could do exactly the same thing. After responding to requests from clients or their accountants, they could make a follow-up call or send a follow-up email, just checking that there are no outstanding issues.
Given the investment of time it’s taken to respond to the request, the incremental effort is minor – but this sends a powerful statement to clients. In many regards, the payoff in terms of the impact on clients doesn’t come from doing the work; it comes from the opportunity to send a positive message in the follow up afterwards.
Turning reactive response into proactive action
The other reason that clients ascribe little value to this type of work is that all too often they’re the ones who have to initiate it. A while back, I spoke to an advisor who got a call from a key client at the end of each year about making a 529 plan contribution for his grandchild. He began calling this client on the date of his grandchild’s birthday, suggesting that they get the contribution processed. Even though the amount of work was the same, he got a great response from the client, simply by changing a reactive response into a proactive suggestion.
The same principle of being proactive applies to responding to requests for tax information. Suppose that when you meet with key clients who submitted tax-related requests, you suggest that you’ll touch base with them or their accountant in early March of next year, to identify any missing information.
This will be especially effective in cases where your clients or their accountants scrambled for information in April of this year. By ensuring that you or one of your team follow up in early March rather than waiting for a call, the amount of work doesn’t increase – it might actually go down. But the credit that you get and the value that you’re perceived to deliver goes up appreciably, simply because you’re demonstrating a commitment to being proactive.
Every advisor wants to be seen as delivering maximum value for the work you do. Following up after you’ve delivered on client requests and taking the initiative instead of waiting for a call from clients are two ways to help increase your perception of value. Individually, they’re small steps – but if they are a part of a bigger picture of responsiveness and service orientation by you and your team, they will make a big impact.
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, go to www.clientinsights.ca. Use A555A for the rep and dealer code to register for website access.
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