Customer service is getting worse

I just read your April 9 Monday Morning, “Good customer service doesn’t leave clients hungry,” and I couldn’t…

I just read your April 9 Monday Morning, “Good customer service doesn’t leave clients hungry,” and I couldn’t agree more.
Being, however, a member of the support staff, I approach the subject a little differently. Not only am I interested in providing world-class customer service to our clients, but I seek to provide the same level of service to my financial advisers.
Beyond that, I expect a minimum level of service from our business partners — clearing firms and home office included. What I have noticed over the past few years is an appalling lack of interest in providing good customer service on the part of homeoffice staff members to their clients, namely the registered representatives, or their assistants, who provide them with a living.
In my career, I have worked for five
broker-dealers, and it has been a downhill slide, going from bad to worse as far as pure customer service is concerned. It is frustrating in that I seek to provide the best service I can to my “clients” and expect that others are seeking to do the same, when that isn’t necessarily the case.
If I don’t perform well, and especially if my financial adviser doesn’t perform well, we don’t get paid.
The home-office attitude seems to be that they get paid every Friday, no matter what, so tough tarts if someone has an urgent need. I do, however run across people that go “the extra mile,” and I praise them to their managers and supervisors as the opportunity presents itself.
I also keep track of those individuals so that I can recruit them or recommend them for a position I know of for which they are qualified. It is a daily struggle, but in doing what I do best, I need to deal with those not willing to provide world-class customer service.
Andrew M. Zuba
Estate Planners of New England
Windham, N.H.

Broker clients’ choices already are limited
I found Marc Lackritz’s Other Views article in your April 16 issue highly disturbing in its narrow interpretation of the recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on the
broker-dealer exemption rule.
According to him, the effect of the ruling is to limit the range of services available to the customer and the choice of payment methods for these services.
Do broker clients now have a choice of no-load mutual funds and variable annuities? Can they buy funds without 12(b)-1 fees and VAs without redemption charges? Do they have a choice of broker to handle their trades? What about the payment method of compensating advisers for advice only and not for selling their employers’ products?
The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. in Denver should take heed of Mr. Lackritz’s (and the [New York- and Washington-based Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association’s]) position. It is yet another demonstration of the need for the board’s standards of professional conduct to include a stronger definition of a fiduciary’s duty of care and to require more specificity in disclosures.
Richard Almeida, CFP
Balliett Financial Services Inc.
Winter Park, Fla.