Your firm can enhance the client experience by focusing on client-facing advisor processes. Leading financial institutions have been creating a set of best practice processes covering key advisor/client interactions.
Our recommendation is to focus on the following areas:
| Generate Leads | Gain Commitment | Onboard Clients |
Manage Clients |
Service Clients |
Manage the Business |
| Client Referrals |
Initial Contact |
Plan Creation/ Revision Mtg |
Progress Meetings |
Initial Contact |
Initial Contact |
| Center of Influence Referrals |
Fact Finding Discovery Meeting |
Plan Implementation Meeting |
Periodic Contact |
Information Change |
Marketing |
Each area has a set of key activities, all of which should have a documented process, supported by tools and templates. For example, in the Gain Commitment area, the key activities include the initial contact, the fact-finding meeting, and the presentation meeting.
The process should be clearly defined and documented for each key activity, including steps to prepare, conduct and follow up on the activity. When defining processes, we recommend using a four-level hierarchy as demonstrated (using financial planning as an example) in the chart below.
| Levels | Example | ||
| 1 | High-level processes |
Creating a financial plan for a client
· Establishing and defining the relationship · Gathering data · Analyzing the data · Developing and presenting the plan · Implementing the plan · Monitoring the plan |
|
| 2 | Sub-processes | Gathering data
· Preparing the information and forms · Establishing risk parameters · Setting goals · Asking questions to clarify the information |
|
| 3 | Tasks and activities |
Preparing the information and forms
· Open file · Select form ### · Complete the form · Print form |
|
| 4 | Step-by-step instructions |
Complete the form
· Line 6 – select account funding preference · Line 7 – select money market preference |
|
You can see in this example how a clearly documented process that breaks things down into easily executed steps makes progress easy to monitor and evaluate. From there, effective coaching and resource allocation become possible.
Once processes are clearly defined, it is important to help advisors embed them into their CRM system. Most CRM systems make it relatively easy to embed a workflow once it is defined well.