What’s really on your clients’ minds?

Most financial advisers operate under the assumption that they know their clients, especially their best clients, very well. Their conversations are regular and often frequent, and advisers are careful to take into account everything their clients have discussed with them when formulating financial and investment plans.

But what if advisers are designing plans and considering investments without truly knowing what’s on their clients’ minds? What if clients haven’t shared many of their deepest and most personal concerns about their future because they’re afraid of being confrontational or coming off as rude? What if they feel ashamed about certain aspects of their financial lives and are uncomfortable about admitting what they don’t know?

Interest in clients’ true motivations and what they are really concerned about regarding their financial future led Great-West Financial^® to conduct a series of in-depth video interviews with pre-retirees and retirees who use a financial adviser. The interviews, conducted by an independent firm without advisers present, covered the subjects’ feelings about retirement and retirement income as well as their expectations of financial advisers. The subjects understood their recorded comments would be seen by financial advisers, but they did not know the identity of the company for which the research was being conducted. (The first names of those interviewed are used throughout this paper.)

What clients said when their advisers were absent revealed key areas of concern, especially regarding their comfort levels in the area of retirement planning and advice.

It also revealed five key conversations that clients would like to have with their financial advisers in order to make their advisers’ services more effective. All too often, however, clients don’t explicitly ask for these conversations or raise the questions they have about their adviser’s approach out of embarrassment or awkwardness. We believe that, if these conversations were to take place, and if advisers were to act on the insights these desired conversations revealed, client satisfaction and loyalty could increase.