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Find out what clients say about you

What do your clients say about your firm — not to your face but to their friends, acquaintances and connections?

What do your clients say about your firm — not to your face but to their friends, acquaintances and connections? If you’ve done your job well, they should be raving about your service and spreading the word about the results you and your team achieve year after year.

The reality, however, is that most clients don’t rave. In fact, many clients are quietly talking trash about their adviser or firm for failing to earn their complete trust. It’s no surprise, then, that more than 80% of high-net-worth clients plan to take money away from their current financial adviser, according to recent research by Prince & Associates Inc.

What’s worse, many advisers are clueless about what their clients think of them. For a firm that wants to thrive, this is problematic. It doesn’t matter if you’re a startup, a small but thriving practice or a firm that employs 500 people — your customers are talking. The big question is: Are your clients saying what you want them to? Are they in that 20% who don’t have the slightest impulse to replace you?

To ensure that they are, you have to get feedback. Listening to your clients and getting an accurate gauge of how they assess your performance will set you up with a solid foundation for action. Just because clients like your people doesn’t mean they like the job you’ve done for them. Just because you’ve done well with their portfolio doesn’t mean they feel comfortable coming to you for advice on major life decisions.

Since they’ve entrusted you to make important decisions about their means and future means, you are the focal point. You need to know where you stand with your clients on this spectrum if you want to excel at the things within your control. You can’t just leave these matters up to chance.

You might not be able to beat the market by 700 basis points every year, but you can show clients they matter to your firm beyond being pawns to bolster your own profits.

Brian Corley, founder and chief investment officer of Veritas Wealth Advisors LLC, advocates establishing a relationship based on honesty, respect and mutual professionalism from the get-go. That includes regularly providing opportunities to express candid, open feedback about your firm’s performance and service. You can’t earn trust without being open to honesty.

Some key questions to ask your clients: Why did they choose you, and why have they stuck with you so far? Is it because your firm consistently delivers on its promise? Or are they sticking around because you’re convenient and predictably average?

It’s a shot in the dark, but I’m willing to bet that your firm’s vision statement doesn’t read: “Striving to be “middle of the road’ in performance and service.” Retaining clients based on their fear of the unknown isn’t a winning strategy.

You want true loyalty? Be extraordinary.

“You have to do what you say you’re going to do — and then some,” Mr. Corley said. “Over-deliver on the basics — service requests, communication, prompt feedback — all those things. It’s amazing how important they are to people. And if you do it really well, it’s something they certainly remember about your practice.”

Honesty, openness, over-delivering on your commitments — those are the pillars of building trust with clients. Consequently, that’s also how you get them to spread the good word, to pass on your name unsolicited and consider your advisers as integral partners in building their future. It happens in the smallest of conversations, yet the effect is immeasurable.

When clients start calling you for counsel on everything from changing the beneficiaries on their 401(k) plan to choosing a car to reviewing the financing deal their daughter is considering in purchasing her first condo, that’s when you know you’ve done your job. That’s when you’ve moved beyond simply managing their money into helping them realize their dreams.

Douglas Heikkinen spent 24 years in the financial services industry before becoming president of Riley Weiss Inc., a branding firm.

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