Do Your Clients Feel Unique, Heard and Empowered?

What does delivering an exceptional client experience mean in 2021? How do you deliver a good client experience when it is no longer about having a big office and embossed stationary, or even about having the most amazing user-friendly website and mounting fancy client events?

The basics are a given, certainly your office should be organized and efficient, you should be on time, your forms should be clear and so on… but increasingly clients – female investors especially -- are looking for a personal client experience. That means that the focus is not about what you do, how good you are at your job, your proprietary investing strategies or the amazing sure-bet investment products you sell. It’s about the client and recognizing that each and every one is unique in their life journey and circumstances so you can’t simply craft a one-size-fits-all strategy.

We well remember one advisor who rather proudly told us that he personalizes all his meetings and presentations. We were impressed until we dug a little deeper. When we asked him how exactly he was doing that he showed us his power point presentation – he used pretty much the same one for all his clients, he simply plugged in their name on the title page. 

Clearly delivering personalized service is far more time consuming than changing the name on a presentation. It takes time and commitment to get to really get to know each client as a unique individual and build trust. It’s about listening to them with an open mind and heart. It’s about putting yourself in their shoes – so that you can truly understand their life, why they reached out to you – what they need.

Joan, a high net worth investor, told us about her “terrific” experience with her new financial advisor. Although due to the pandemic they were confined to meeting on line, she said she was impressed from the first minute. He was organized and on time, he introduced himself briefly but apart from that, the conversation was all about her and her family. He asked interesting questions about her life, not her finances. He let her talk, answered her questions patiently and never seemed to be in a hurry. By the end of the conversation she said she felt like they could be friends. In her words, “meeting with him is always a great experience, I learn so much – I feel that I can totally trust him.  Even though I wasn’t delighted to hear that I have to cut back on some spending, I feel better knowing what I need to do.”

The bottom line is that your goal should be to make the client feel unique, feel heard, feel important, feel empowered – and you can’t fake that.

Sometimes having a friend is more important than having a process. What kind of experience do clients have at your practice? Efficiency, grounded in sound investing practices or in the moment with the client – each and every time.

To find out what matters to women in particular, visit www.strategymarketing.ca

Related: Trustworthiness Is the Edge Female Advisors Have