An adviser's support team spends each morning answering the same client emails: portal password resets, review dates, copies of last year's statement, change-of-address requests and who to contact while an adviser is on holiday. None of it is complicated. All of it takes time away from planning.
Existing clients ask routine service questions constantly. Redesigning client service around them frees advisers for the work that needs them.
Two kinds of client question
General service questions have the same answer for most clients: how reviews work, how to use the portal, how to update details, what the firm's opening hours are.
Personal questions need someone with access to the client's file: questions about their investments, a specific withdrawal, a change in circumstances.
The first group can be answered from published information. The second needs a person.
Redesigning client service
Publish a client service page. Cover reviews, the portal, documents, updating details and how to contact the team. Retainer clients in agencies ask similar repeated questions, described in agency retainer clients asking the same update questions.
Explain the review cycle. Tell clients how often reviews happen, how they are arranged and what to prepare.
Make portal help easy to find. Password resets and login questions are among the most common.
Route personal questions. Capture the client's name and question, and send it to their adviser or the support team.
Set response expectations. Tell clients when they can expect a reply to a personal question.
Where an assistant helps
SpideyChat for financial advisers answers general service questions from your own pages at any hour and captures personal questions for the team. It does not access client accounts or give advice.
Client: How do I reset my portal password? Assistant: The client service page explains how to reset your password using the "forgotten password" link on the portal login page. If that doesn't work, the support team can help.
Client: Can I take some money out of my pension? Assistant: That's something your adviser would need to look at with you. I'll pass your question on; could you share your name and the best way to reach you?
Clients approaching retirement
Clients nearing retirement often have more questions, and more anxious ones. Their needs are covered in retirement planning enquiries that arrive at night. Clients with smaller portfolios may worry about whether they are still a priority, a concern addressed in minimum investment questions and honest answers.
Holiday and absence cover
Clients often worry about who to contact when their adviser is away. Publishing how cover works during holidays and absences, and naming a contact in the support team, removes that anxiety. It also stops urgent questions sitting in an absent adviser's inbox.
Life events
Marriage, divorce, a new baby, a bereavement or a new job can all change a client's plans. Encouraging clients to tell the firm when something changes, and making it easy to do so, helps advisers keep plans up to date.
Clients who have moved
Clients who move away often ask whether they can stay with the firm. Explaining that the firm works with clients remotely, where it does, answers this. Area questions are covered in answering service area questions.
A client service page
Write a client service page covering reviews, portals, documents, updating details and contacts, and let clients get routine answers at any hour. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about answers on the features page.