Only around one-third of financial advice firms conduct formal and regular client satisfaction surveys to improve their services and offering to clients.
CoreData’s latest fast and focused research, conducted between September 21 and 30, 2020, reveals that more than six out of 10 (63.8 per cent) advice firms don’t use client satisfaction surveys at all to ask clients how they perceive their adviser’s services or their satisfaction with what they’ve been getting.
Yet more than half of the survey respondents (55.3 per cent) say the predominant way clients pay for the services they receive is either as a flat fee or an annual retainer. Firms relying on clients to renew an advice agreement every year, but who are not formally inquiring into the client’s level of satisfaction with the service they’ve received, may be at heightened risk of losing revenue if a dissatisfied client is not identified early.
Most firms that conduct surveys of clients do them annually, either to coincide with a scheduled client review or prompted by some other once-a-year event. Around a quarter of firms conduct surveys less frequently than annually, and a very small proportion (2.9 per cent) conduct them quarterly.
Firms that conduct surveys at other frequencies include bi-annually, and to “at client seminars, maybe twice a year”.
Once the results of a survey are in, the findings are predominantly used to improve existing services, such as making client meetings more efficient or easier for the client.
More than half of the firms surveyed said they use results to improve client communications, including tailoring the frequency and content of newsletters.
Around a third use the survey to expand the range of services offered. Others use the findings less formally, including to “keep in touch”; in marketing by “collating and letting everyone know of the high rating by others via social media post”; and for tracking whether clients perceive they are getting value for the money they pay and the service they get from their adviser.
It’s not too late to take part in this round of CoreData’s fast and focused research – to do so, simply find this week’s New Model Adviser newsletter in your email inbox, and follow the link to the survey.
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