14 1. Invite all clients to give feedback First, invite all your clients to give feedback. “Advice firms who don’t are only cheating themselves”, says Rob Heath, Director of IronMarket Wealth, “It’s only by asking all our members for feedback that we can uncover our blind-spots and identify areas which need improvement”. After inviting all their clients for feedback, the proportion of IronMarket’s clients who showed an understanding of their fees fell, from 86% to 60%. “That highlighted an important opportunity to give our members a better experience and to reduce the potential for risk within our business,” Heath said. In response, IronMarket contacted every client whose feedback showed a potential risk, then enhanced their process to proactively check clients’ understanding in annual meetings. As a result, the percentage of their clients who show an understanding of their fees has leapt to 91.43%. 2. Include prospective clients Prior to the Consumer Duty deadline, many firms didn’t invite prospects to give feedback. This year, with the requirement that firms monitor outcomes for prospective, as well as actual, clients, the proportion that do has more than doubled - but it’s still only 23%. Firms who’ve adopted this practice have uncovered a significant opportunity. The difference between a prospect becoming a client or not is a fine line. Elevation data shows that 53% of prospects who give a 5-star first impression review go on to become a client; for those who leave a 4-star first impression review, only 14% do. Collecting and acting on feedback from prospective clients can increase conversion rates to as much as 71%. 3. Ask the right questions Arriving at the right questions to ask can be tricky. In part because most people give answers that make their adviser look good. This is encouraging on the one hand, but it doesn’t help improve your client experience. For example, our Elevation survey used to ask prospective clients the question, ‘Was the adviser clear about their fees?’. 89% said ‘Yes’. When we changed the question to ‘How do the adviser’s fees work?’ and gave simple multiple choice options, only 44% could give an answer. Interestingly, when prospective clients are clear how an adviser’s fees work, 51% intend to become clients. This falls to 29% where they are not sure. So, asking the right questions - and acting on the feedback - offers a significant commercial advantage. Using client feedback in this way also makes it easier to stay on top of your regulatory responsibilities. For example, your first annual assessment, due before the end of July 2024, needs to include results from your firm’s monitoring of client outcomes together with an overview of actions taken to address any risks or issues identified. Who better to provide input on the real results, benefits and consequences of your services? Who better to give you fair warning of processes that could be improved? Client feedback gives your firm insight into how well they understand various other aspects of your services from fees to your vulnerable client support. All of this can feed directly into your senior management meetings and annual assessment report. Since the Consumer Duty came into effect, many advice firms have started collecting feedbac The value of this feedback is huge, both in demonstrating that firms are meeting the Duty, and These are our five best practice steps for collecting feedback - and what to do with it. Best practice for collecting feedback ... and what to d VouchedFor
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