Week 1: Identifying a “platinum” level of service
Week 2: Delivering “platinum” service
Week 3: Creating service levels for second- and third-tier clients
Week 4: Communicating your service levels to clients
The challenge: If your wealthiest clients account for the bulk of your revenue and deserve most of your attention, how do you structure your practice to provide them with the service they need?
The solution: The best way to satisfy top clients is to establish clearly defined service levels and apportion your clients among the two or three levels you create. This is easy to do in theory but hard to accomplish in practice. First, a well-developed service plan should be written. It should lay out clearly what each client in each service level will receive from you — the number of annual phone calls and e-mails, for instance, as well as the number of in-person meetings, the number of account reviews and every other service element you can think of. Determining the service elements in your practice requires careful analysis. But before doing that, you also must find out what precisely your top clients have in mind when they think of service.
This week: Identifying a “platinum” level of service
The best way to begin enumerating the services you should deliver to your best clients is by asking them what they want. To help in this process, go to your
Top Client Background Chart, where you’ve captured important client information and tracked client interests. Next, e-mail your top clients — the 30 or 40, or perhaps even fewer, in a typical practice who represent 80% of your revenue — and ask them to tell you the top three services they would like you to provide. These may be services your already offer, and perhaps some you don’t. Give them two days to respond so they can think about their answers.
When the results are in, combine the responses and create a list of the five to 10 leading services that your top clients have identified. Here are a few that they may have mentioned:
1. Meeting with clients’ attorneys to make sure wills and trusts are in order.
2. An annual insurance review to check coverage and beneficiaries.
3. News about investing from top money managers.
4. Helping family members with generational issues including elder care, long-term care, assisted-living arrangements, special children’s needs, etc.
5. Receiving regular updates about investments and other news through a newsletter and/or e-mail.
6. Providing client input through a client advisory board.
7. Client appreciation events tied to lifestyle interests, including museums, cruises and family gatherings.
Remember, the key variables in your service levels will be the frequency of contact you can provide and the services you offer. To remind you how important frequent contact is to wealthy clients, consider what J.D. Power and Associates of Westlake Village, Calif., discovered in its most recent survey of customer satisfaction with full-service brokerage firms. Power learned that affluent investors, or those with more than $1 million in investible assets, want 4.2 proactive calls from their adviser each year. Mass affluent investors, or those with $100,000 to $1 million, want 2.8 calls a year. Mass market investors, those with less than $100,000 to invest, expect 1.7 calls on average each year.
This demonstrates that investors instinctively understand service tiers and can actually help you set the levels and service elements that will satisfy them.
An adviser’s success story
One adviser I know recently created his tiered service levels and mailed a letter to all his clients outlining what he will do for each level. Rather than be offended by not making his top tier, once they knew what they would be receiving, many of his lower tier clients moved their insurance plans to his practice in order to qualify for “platinum” status.
Next week:By Maureen Wilke, practice management coach
Wilke and Associates Inc. of Glen Ellyn, Ill.
