In the midst of a lingering recession and intense rivalry in the market for financial planning services and products, the key to survival and continuous growth for any business entity is its clients. Due to the constant improvements in customer taste and increased competition, the balance of power has been shifted from the supplier of goods and services to the customer. With these thoughts in mind, your clients are becoming more sophisticated in their tastes and tend to dictate what types of service they desire and how they wish that service to be extended to them. Therefore, it is critical for the advisor to ensure that clients are placed at the cornerstone of their business operations.

Customers are the key to companies’ success, growth, and competitive advantage. Creating a trusting relationship between you and your client is the most important value-creating skill.

Maintain Trust

Ensuring a trusting relationship between you and the client is the single most important value creating skill you may need to gain a competitive advantage. What then is trust and how is it achieved and sustained? Trust, in its purest form, is a firm reliance on one’s intent and behavior. The erosion of trust comes when one’s behavior is contrary to one’s stated values. In terms of a client/ advisor relationship, trust can be quickly destroyed when the advisor fails to live up to the expectations of the client.

Broken Promises

If trust is lost in the process of the client/ advisor relationship, can it be rebuilt? The answer is yes! Clients pardon and disregard violations and breaches of their business relationships. However, the forgiveness is strongly dependent on how the organization or advisor responds to those sometimes implicit rules guiding performance. Admitting errors and making promises to alter behavior can certainly help the pace in which trust is recovered.

Resolve Problems Enthusiastically

There are a myriad of client related problems that can occur during the course of carrying out your business. In fact, sometimes it can become so tedious to measure up to all the expectations of your clients that you fail at maintaining the relationship of trust with your client. Nevertheless, once a client related problem is determined, it makes good sense to always show enthusiasm in resolving it. Discontented clients can be your worst enemy. However, a discontented client can be turned around and potentially become one of your strongest allies but that is dependent on how eager and willing you are to resolve their complaints. Remember, your clients are looking for solutions and it is your responsibility to provide them. Within this business relationship, it is expected that the advisor take the responsibility for his actions and do the right thing. Once the client recognizes your failure coupled with a willingness to resolve the issue, they will forgive you and thus, further the client-advisor relationship. Don’t be caught up in the popular maxim that you cannot please all your customers. The truth is, you cannot, but you need to make the effort to create a strategy to quickly rebuild client trust just in case something went wrong.

Be Proactive

Besides showing eagerness to resolve problems, there is another way to rebuild trust, and that is having a proactive mindset, i.e. seeing and handling problems before they occur. As part of your organizational process, you can implement regular surveys such as questionnaires to obtain information on the client’s view of your service. The results of a survey can indicate to you where you are going wrong and then you can make your adjustments accordingly. Spending time to do this will indicate to the client that you are taking their interest to heart. It shows that you are encouraging ethical conduct and a commitment to compliance with the law. This is how the advisor pays due regard to their clients’ expectations. In the end, the actions that you proactively take now will speak volumes about the value you place on your clients.

Strong Reputation

When a client makes a decision to choose a financial advisor, it is on the implicit premise that the advisor is going to act ethically and make decisions that are in the client’s best interest. Failure to live up to the expectations of the client can result in the breakdown of trust and ultimately the demise of the client-advisor relationship. A good corporate reputation reflects past behavior of following through with stated promises. Developing a professional reputation for your business is a very important aspect that should not be taken lightly. Over the years, I have personally come to discover that companies that enjoy a solid reputation tend to have more loyal customers and experience greater flexibility and resilience in terms of recovering from

organizational blunders. It stands to reason, that if you work hard enough to develop a good corporate reputation, you will be able to heal the disgruntled ‘loyal’ client and ultimately rebuild the trust that was broken. In an effort to build a good reputation, you need to foster the element of trust through a demonstration of your values for all to see.

Your Public Image

Being a good corporate citizen is one way of developing a positive reputation and this is created on the idea of how you are perceived by the general public. Building a good reputation may take weeks, months, or perhaps several years, but it can be accomplished. If you are skilled at writing, you can commence by submitting articles in financial planning publications featuring your company, your staff, and work ethics. Don’t forget to include all your contact information. You could also consider showing up on radio talk shows as a guest and offer expert advice on financial planning or whatever positive thing you do as an organization. Like humans, organizations are prone to make mistakes and not live up to the expectations of their customers. Sometimes, these mistakes can become so intense that it is difficult to rebuild client trust. Nevertheless, the smart organization knows the value of its customers and therefore makes every attempt to resolve problems enthusiastically, is always proactive, and strives to maintain a strong reputation. Always view client complaints positively as a way to enhance your service and avoid being so engulfed in the idea of making a buck at the expense of your client, while neglecting the human aspects of trust in your practice.

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