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Clients have never been busier or more time pressed – and have shorter attention spans as a result.
That’s why in 2011 you need to rethink your approach to client meetings.
For larger clients who you meet with regularly, you should consider replacing some of those face-to-face meetings with structured phone meetings.
These are not like the “just checking in” calls advisors typically make now, which are ad hoc and informal in nature, but instead have many of the qualities of formal meetings.
Let’s be clear: clients still want to hear from you – in fact, given continuing market volatility, chances are they want to hear from you more than ever.
But they typically want each of those interactions to be shorter.
And they’re increasingly reluctant to invest the time to meet face-to-face. That’s especially true if your office is downtown in a large city or some distance away from clients – more and more people hate fighting traffic and paying for parking.
You still need to have one annual meeting with key clients – even if you have to go to them rather than having them come to you. Touching base once a year really is essential. There’s still no substitute for face-to-face contact to maintain an emotional connection.
But supplement that meeting with shorter quarterly – or for key clients monthly – 15- to 20-minute phone calls.
Making calls more powerful
The key is to make those phone calls feel as much like face-to-face meetings as possible.
First, schedule a phone meeting just as you would a regular meeting – say at 3 pm on Monday. The good news is that most clients can accommodate a 20-minute call in their work schedule.
Next, you need an agenda that you send beforehand to walk clients through on the call, just like you would for a meeting in person.
And finally, you need to use technology to keep clients’ attention on the call.
I’ve talked to some advisors who’ve begun using webcams and Skype, so they and their client can see each other as they’re talking.
One advisor suggests to older clients who have significant assets that in advance of a phone meeting, his son will go to their home, install a web cam, show them how it works and be there for the start for the call. He then leaves the camera there to use with their kids and grandkids – nothing he’s ever done for clients has approached the response from setting up that webcam.
Using webcams to talk to clients today is very rare … but within three years it will be commonplace.
