Winning Over Your Clients: Creating a Client Engagement Strategy

By Julie Littlechild
President, Advisor Impact

When asked, most advisors identify growth, profitability and client management as their top three challenges. On the surface, these challenges appear to compete, creating a degree of strategic schizophrenia.

The reality is that these challenges align under the banner of "client engagement." An engaged client is satisfied and loyal and one who manifests those positive feelings in increased share of wallet and referrals. Engaged clients are among your happiest and most profitable. They reflect the connection between the quality of your client relationships and growth.

Turning the definition of client engagement into something practical and actionable is, however, the real challenge. The drivers of client engagement have been broadly identified in Advisor Impact’s research series called the Economics of Loyalty. We believe that client engagement is, at the highest level, characterized by three things:

• Working with the right clients
• Having the right conversations
• Asking the right questions

When creating client engagement, fit matters. When you work with the clients for whom you can do your best work, magic can happen. However, this does not work for everyone. Fit likely includes such factors as values, communication style and personality. It also includes the “offer,” which must clearly align with your clients’ needs. Financial planning, for example, plays a substantial role among the most engaged clients. It seems likely that the link between engagement and the financial plan is less about the document and more about the deep conversations required to create a plan.

If fit matters, then finding a way to assess fit as part of your discovery process also matters. Taking it one step further, if fit is not there, we need to find the self-discipline to walk away from the relationship. That is the tough part.

Client engagement is also driven by a deeper connection, reflected in higher levels of client contact—the right conversations. There is no doubt that engaged clients are more expensive relationships, based on the demand for more direct contact. Engaged clients have stronger personal relationships with their advisors and they look to their advisors to lead. Leadership is critical to client engagement.

It is important to note that the conversation with engaged clients is on-going. Engaged clients are partners and their input is solicited with respect to the business. The data shows that engaged clients are more likely to have been asked for feedback and that they believe it will have a real impact on the relationship. Engaged clients, as a result, feel a greater sense of ownership of the relationship.

This last driver of engagement—client feedback—is also one of the best tactical starting points to increase engagement. Engagement suggests a deeper understanding of what is most important for clients, what they need and what they value. We need a mechanism to gather more and better information from clients as to their definition of a great relationship. Too often we make assumptions about what is most important to clients, using our own lens. Engagement is about delivering what clients want and going deeper to create an emotional bond. By asking clients regularly about what matters most to them and by measuring our success in engaging clients, we are on the right path.

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