CHRISISM #56 - Creating a Quality Experience

12 December 2017

We need to guard against our risk advice process becoming too transactional. There is a big difference between completing a transaction for a client and creating a quality experience for them.

In my experience most clients are more than happy to refer a quality experience to other people, but the only transactions that people will generally refer to other people are ones that go wrong:-   “ God, this is what happened to me – so don’t go to him/her!”

This is certainly one of the reasons why it is so important to do everything we can in our engagement process to ensure that the client is getting a quality experience. Another fringe benefit of creating a quality experience is that the client is much more likely to perceive that they are getting value, and that becomes more and more important as we move more towards a fee based remuneration.

So what I would like to do in this last Chrisism for 2017 is outline a handful of ways in which I believe you can create a quality experience for your clients in your initial advice process:-

1) If you haven’t already done so, move from doing a needs analysis on your clients to doing a wants analysis on your clients. This will dramatically increase the enjoyment factor for your clients, thereby creating desire for an appropriate personal protection package rather than it being a grudge purchase or at best an expensive necessity (see Chrisism#9)

2) Lower the bar when overcoming the price barrier by getting your clients to focus, not on the dollars and cents that their personal protection package is costing them, but on the percentage the premium represents of the income they are securing (see Chrisism#1)

3) Refer to Trauma Cover as The Miracle Product from the word go and motivate them to want as much Trauma Cover as they can reasonably afford and to want to own it for as long as possible by explaining the irresistible combination i.e. likelihood of claim and likelihood of recovery (see Chrisism#14)      

4) Make sure you are educating your clients on the importance of level premiums – especially when it comes to Trauma Cover. The way in which one gets the maximum potential benefit out of Trauma Cover is to own it for as long as possible (see Chrisism#33)

5) Have a face to face meeting with every new client once policy documents have been issued - (the policy explanation meeting). I believe this is the most commercially valuable meeting in the initial advice process. Amongst other things, this will enable you to get your new clients’ feedback on the experience they have had coming on board as a client, which can be a natural door opener for referrals. (see Chrisism#40)

6) Right from the very start of your engagement process, avoid creating a negative perception on the part of your clients simply because of the terminology you are using (see Chrisism#8).

Hopefully these have been some useful reminders for you on how to create a quality experience for your clients.

I hope you have enjoyed my Chrisisms throughout 2017 and I wish you all a fantastic festive season! I look forward to kicking off my Chrisisms for 2018 on Tuesday 9 January and please be sure to look out for some exciting news regarding my video training programmes early in the New Year, which I am sure you will find most valuable. 

The Risk Workshop by Chris Unwin

Are you a financial adviser who would like all of your clients to have appropriate types and levels of personal protection? But perhaps you feel you need a more structured and client friendly engagement process?