The path to hyper-growth begins with understanding how to increase client engagement.
To that end, identify how many of these eight types of client engagement your firm is (or isn’t) already using – and then implement any tactics that you aren’t effectively doing already.
Timely communication
Look first at how often you’re communicating with your clients as a whole. This doesn’t mean how many review meetings you hold each year, but rather, the totality of communication. If you aren’t communicating timely, relevant information to clients at least monthly, then this is the first place to start when attempting to increase client engagement.
Regular meetings
Your actual meeting cadence will vary depending on the services you offer, the complexity of the clients you work with, and what’s occurring in the world that’s impacting investments. However, it’s generally accepted that personal meetings with most clients should occur 2-3 times yearly – and annually, at the bare minimum.
Getting clients engaged in their investment performance, especially if they are naturally delegators, can be a balancing act. One of the most effective ways to manage expectations is by helping clients to understand their personal level of risk tolerance and then using that knowledge as a recurring conversation point to build trust in both an advisor and the agreed-upon plan.
There is constant talk about personalization within the financial advice profession, and research about client preferences backs up the need to build communication plans that are as highly targeted as possible. Personalization doesn’t mean “basic” tactics like using an email platform to auto-generate first names. Instead, clients want their advisors to anticipate what’s important to them and engage with them about those personal situations.
Empathy is a critical element in building trust and connection with clients, and advisors who master implementing a holistic, empathetic approach to client relationships give themselves a pathway to long-term engagement and retention success. Empathy is not just about active listening; it’s also about the actions taken after a client has indicated what they need and how you can help them. Follow-through is the most important part of cultivating relationships.
Financial education not only draws prospects to a firm, it helps to retain clients over time with relevant information. That principle is best seen in the Great Wealth Transfer as assets change hands from older to younger generations. By focusing on engaging with the next generation through education, advisors can attempt to keep more of the estimated 70% of the wealth that leaves a firm after one generation.
Often, advisors think of targeting marketing campaigns only as a way to reach new prospects. However, targeted marketing campaigns to internal groups – like different segments of clients – are just as important to the growth and longevity of a firm as attracting new business.
As a firm offers more services, it gives itself additional opportunities to engage with and talk to its current clients. For example, If you’re a firm that began with investment management and financial planning, adding tax planning can be a way to increase the value offered to the people you serve and even gain additional wallet share.
Implementing an effective client engagement strategy is one thing. Still, even the most organized teams can quickly become overwhelmed by the communication needed to stay in front of news, trends constantly, and the personal, everyday concerns of clients. Overall, firms that are growing slowly have less automated client communication than hyper-growth firms. But more importantly, they are roughly 1.5x more likely to have no automation set up at all.
Automation is essential because it helps to free up time for advisors to develop their soft skills. In an industry like wealth management, where most advisors are expecting to be involved in business development and the prospecting process, automation can lead to more one-on-one personal interactions with clients and the time needed to follow up with prospective clients too.
When it comes to hyper-growth firms, 25 to 50% of communications are automated. When that much manual work is taken out of an advisor’s hands, a tremendous amount of free time is created to push toward revenue-generating activities instead.