Think outside the
box when it comes to personal touches and unique experiences for clients
Sep
11, 2019 @ 1:52 pm By Jay Cooper
Successful
financial advisers are differentiating themselves with small, inexpensive
touchpoints that strike a personal chord with their clients and taking other
key steps to create a "five-star" experience for clients.
Advisers can wow
their clients by focusing broadly on three areas, according to Susan Kay,
director of business development at MFS Fund Distributors,
speaking at the InvestmentNews
Women Adviser Summit in Denver on Tuesday. Those areas are:
providing "personal touches" for clients, creating a more engaging
office experience, and hosting innovative events.
"Throughout
history, successful business people have figured out how to court prospects by
creating a five-star experience, thinking outside the box and finding ways to
exceed client expectations," Ms. Kay told about 170 mostly female
financial advisers in the audience.
She shared some of
the most creative and memorable ideas she's seen from advisers around the
country.
Personal touches
Creating personal
touches starts by considering the things that matter most to individual
clients, Ms. Kay said. For small business owners, that business is their
lifeblood. She suggested tracking down the DBA for that business and sending a
small card that celebrates the business anniversary.
Other clients love
their pets. For these animal lovers, Ms. Kay suggested printing postage stamps
(through Stamps.com) with their pet's picture, or
creating a handkerchief with the pet's name (K9design.com).
Advisers can also
creatively celebrate a client's birthday with a back-issue of a magazine from
the year they were born (Pastpaper.com).
Yet another way
advisers can differentiate themselves is through an "I'm sorry"
drawer. In this scenario, the adviser keeps a drawer of boxed chocolates or
some other gift. Any time the adviser utters the words "I'm sorry" to
a client for a small mishap, the adviser would send the gift right away. That
rebrands the experience from a negative to a positive one, Ms. Kay said.
Office experiences
Remember that
treasure chest at the dentist's office when you were a kid? It probably vastly
improved the semi-annual teeth cleaning. Advisers can create similar
experiences in their office. For example, one firm has a "Candy Bar,"
which includes several jars of candy and tiny takeout boxes so that clients can
take home their favorites.
Displaying a list
of the community organizations that a firm works with also relates what an
adviser is passionate about and leave a good impression, Ms. Kay said.
Another firm built
a client library with books that clients can check out. The books range from
dealing with Alzheimer's disease to raising financially fit kids. These paint a
picture that the adviser understands the needs of families.
Unique client
events
Advisers also can
get more creative in the events they host, Ms. Kay said. For example, some
firms are hiring life coaches to conduct two-hour workshops that help a client
define his or her purpose and establish next steps for achieving it.
Yet another idea is
to host a wine party, but with a unique twist that tests the client's tasting
skills. Advisers can order a wine tasting party kit online (such as at Giftedgrape.com)
and then invite three or four clients and ask them to assemble a team of their
friends to participate in a tasting competition. Bottles of wine are hidden and
the teams taste each one, ordering them from the least to most expensive, or
simply trying to guess which type of wine is in each bottle.
The tasting parties
can get loud and competitive, but ultimately end up being a lot of fun for
clients and give the adviser a lot of time to interact with their friends.
Such events cost
very little but can go a long way toward strengthening existing client
relationships or finding new ones, Ms. Kay said.
Jay Cooper is a
freelance writer in Denver.
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