This month, the FPA’s “Research and Practice Institute” (RPI) released its study on “Trends in Client Communication”, a part of its ongoing follow-up to last year’s “Future of Practice Management Study” that identified client communication as a key driver of advisory firms (and a self-identified challenge area for many advisors).
Not surprisingly, then, the results of the RPI study show a wide range of practices in how advisors handle their client communication, segment their clients, and conduct their client review meetings. Nonetheless, the results do provide an interesting glimpse into common practices today; for instance, 71% of advisors report that they segment their clients to at least some degree, 85% conduct client meetings in their offices (rather than the client’s home/business), and 88% have a website for providing at least basic information to clients.
Notwithstanding these consistencies, though, the conclusions of the study suggest there is still significant room for advisors to continue to standardize the way they conduct review meetings and deliver communication to clients as well. For instance, while 80% of advisors say they use a CRM only 41% actually enter client notes into their CRM, only 1-in-3 advisors even occasionally set a formal agenda for client meetings, and only about a quarter of advisors have defined standards of service for their clients and have a means of tracking effectiveness!
While the study is ultimately more descriptive than prescriptive, it will be interesting to see how these statistics trend in the coming years!