As a financial advisor, you know that establishing successful relationships with clients is key to your business. These relationships require trust and transparency, achieved through effective and clear communication. An effective and meaningful communication strategy will lead to client retention and satisfaction, referrals, and overall good business.
Consider these tips to improve your advisor-to-client communication strategies.
Have an effective onboarding process for clients:
To get an advisor-client relationship off to a good start, set a positive and confident tone. This onboarding process ought to include establishing clear expectations from both advisor and client.
In addition, be sure to listen well. Determine what expectations the client has, and about which topics they are most concerned and interested in. You can also determine which channels through which to communicate as well as how often is appropriate. Establishing a clear idea of mutual expectations will make continuing communications easier, and the client will know what to expect.
Be flexible with how clients want to communicate:
Be willing to meet clients’ communication styles and needs wherever possible. Over the past several years, modes of client communication have increased and transformed. In addition to the classic phone call, we now have email, texts, virtual meetings, chat apps, etc.
Advisors should take time to survey prospects and clients about their communication preferences. Communicating general information through a general email intended for all clients may be appropriate for some information, but it is best to know how each client prefers to get customized information and updates. For instance, some clients may prefer to have a set weekly or monthly schedule where they stop in for an in-person meeting, while other clients with hectic schedules may prefer digital communications.
Be upfront with clients about their preferred communication styles so that you know how to best get in contact with them. In addition, make sure you are prepared with the technology to facilitate different requests.
Educate clients as needed:
Make good use of newsletters to provide clients with market updates at regular intervals. Some can be shared with your entire clientele, but it’s also a good idea to work in customized educational communications based on the needs and preferred communication channels of your clients. This kind of personalization can help you build connections and trust.
Here are some tips for supplying your clients with educational resources that will make them more savvy investors.
- Figure out client needs: General market information is good, but if you understand the specific challenges that your clients are facing, then offer up information that is valuable and specific to them. This will keep your newsletters engaging and useful.
- Determine how your clients like to receive instructional material: Survey clients with several options–these options can include emails, podcasts, group conference calls, or other types of social media. Just be sure that you’re equipped to utilize the options that you offer.
- Keep a calendar: Organize the types of information that you will provide, and keep a schedule for when certain newsletters, calls, and articles will go out via specific channels. Be a consistent and reliable source of information.
- Keep track of engagement: Whatever modes that you choose to communicate, keep tabs on whether you are getting the amount of engagement that you want. For example, email programs usually offer data regarding how many of your emails are opened. If engagement is not what you would like, make adjustments.
Put aside time to communicate directly with clients
Clients should feel that they are more than a simple business interaction. In addition to your scheduled communications, take some time out to ask your clients how things are going. If you can spend a little more time directly talking to clients, then you can more easily personalize your interactions with them and learn more about their goals and interests. Ultimately, this can help deepen relationships of trust and help you know how to better meet your clients’ needs.
Key takeaways: Effective financial advisors know how their clients prefer to communicate. Then they use those preferred channels to customize services and cultivate a loyal client base.
Contact me for more help communicating with clients. Building off of years of mentoring investors through a real estate investing mentor program, I coach wealth managers to utilize values based leadership skills to grow their business, network, and build better advisor-client relationships.
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