How Advisors Strengthen Client Relationships And Keep Clients Happy

When we started doing this one thing each month, we noticed that it really brought us closer to our clients. You and I both know that it's critical that we do the things necessary to keep our current clients happy. We need to make sure that we continue to provide excellent service and care for them, because if we don't, then we won't be in business much longer. And one of the things we try to do as advisors is bring more confidence to our clients and their financial life. 

A recent YChart study revealed that one of the key factors in client confidence is how often they hear from their advisor.

The more often they have contact, the more confident the client feels. But talking with every single client, every single month can be pretty difficult to do, depending on how many different clients you have. That's why at our firm, we started to record a simple client update that goes out to each one of our clients each month. This has been making a big impact on the connection with our clients, and it can be done at scale, meaning a one to two minute video can go out and impact however many clients you have, whether that's 50 or 200. 

But what do you say in these videos? And what if you're not good on camera? 

I’m going to share with you the easy way we got started – it doesn't take a lot of time – so you can make videos that your clients are going to like.

But first, I know that recording a simple video each month is going to make a big impact on your clients’ lives and their satisfaction with the work that you're doing. And don’t worry that a video going out to many people isn't personal just because it's not addressing a specific need of an individual client. When you send a video each month, it's going to remind people that you're there and that you're there to help. And if they do have a problem, they can just reach out to you because they got that reminder. So it's a win, no matter how you think about it. 

Here is a template of what we cover in our videos: 

1. Family Update
2. Financial Reminder or Tip
3. Housekeeping 
4. Giving Story

Family Update

We start with a family update and a picture. If you have kids or grandkids, share something fun or cute that happened this past month, something that'll warm people's hearts and connect with you. For example, last month we shared pictures from our client service manager, Carolyn, of her daughter’s wedding. We’ve noticed that the personal and family updates are actually the things that people reply to most whenever we send these videos out. 

Financial Reminder or Tip

The next thing we do is a financial reminder. It can be something simple like the IRA contribution deadline coming up for tax season. Last month, we did rebalancing for a lot of client accounts, so we just notified them that they might see updates or notifications there.

If you don’t have a relevant reminder, you could give a 30-second summary of an article you read that would be helpful to them. For instance, I recently read good article on rising interest rates and the impact on bonds and equities. And because that's currently in the news, people are thinking and hearing a lot about this inflation impact. So anything that you can do to ease your clients’ minds about what’s currently going on in the news could be something to do here as well. 

Housekeeping 

There are several different options that could be used as a housekeeping item. You could give a reminder of how to login to the online portal, or let them know tax documents will be coming soon. Or introduce them to a new team member, or even do a quick intro on the whole team, just to remind your clients of the different roles people have in the office and put faces to names.

Giving Story

One of the greatest things that we've ever done at our firm is to talk about generosity with our clients. Because we see clients who are content and happy with their retirement, with their life, we realized a lot of the things that they had in common was how generous they were. And if you're willing to come from a place of abundance with money, usually that's a much better place than the opposite. 

We want our clients to be content and happy with what they have, so we started sharing inspirational stories of how our clients use their time, money, and skills in service of others. This has inspired other clients to start talking about being generous as well and sharing some of the videos. 

So that's just what we've done personally at our firm, but your outline could be anything that fits your values and goals as a firm. That's just our template that we use each month. 

Now what to do if you really don't want to be on camera?

My recommendation would be to record yourself a couple of times–don't show it to anybody–and just start practicing, talking on camera, talking to the screen. Your clients work with you because they like you, they're not expecting you to be amazing on camera, but if you can picture one of your clients on the other side of that screen, as you're talking to the camera, it makes a big impact and they can actually feel that when they're watching the video. So try it, record yourself, watch it, and then delete it if you want to. 

So obviously the first choice would be continuing to practice and then try it out, send it out to a few clients, see what the response is. But the alternative, if you really don't want to do video, I'd encourage you to find just two to three articles that are helpful for your clients. Maybe things that are being discussed a lot in the news, but have a different viewpoint that can help your clients in some way. And then add your two cents, maybe include a brief written summary along with the link to the article. 

And then, if you're doing that, I would also include a family update. People do want to see it. If they don't, then they don't have to read the email. 

And if you want to hear more about easy ways to really streamline this system, or whether you're doing the video or whether you're doing just the client articles, let me know in the comments. If this was helpful, then I can create another video with some of the specifics and how we're helping clients and the sort of impact that we're seeing in their lives.