Beverly Flaxington is a practice management consultant. She answers questions from advisors facing human resource issues. To submit yours, email us here. 
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Dear Bev,
We recently did some analysis to see the impact our client communication is having. Specifically we send out a monthly newsletter on a variety of interesting topics such as the best ways to save for college or best places to retire, a quarterly update on the market and individual emails once every month to clients with a piece of interesting information. We found the open rate was high on all of our communications but the click-through rates were abysmal. While close to 40% of people opened the monthly, 25% opened the quarterly and 80% opened the one-to-one email, in all cases only about 2% of people clicked through to the information we provided. Is this normal?
It’s a lot of effort and clients are not apparently interested in what we have to say. Are we old-school in what we’re doing? One of our younger advisors said we should be sending out alerts via text to clients with “sound bites” of what we are seeing and considering. I would be annoyed if a trusted advisor of mine starting sending me random text messages.
We recognize the importance of communication and we’ve tried to be very thoughtful and diligent (and consistent) with what we are doing, but these numbers don’t give me a good feeling about whether clients recognize or appreciate it. Should we dispense with email and figure out another way to communicate?
Harry O.
Dear Harry,
Let me give you kudos on two counts – having an organized and apparently well thought out client communication strategy and having the interest to measure it and then review the results! You are doing a very important analysis by trying to understand the data and determine if you need to make any changes. This is very impressive from my view.
There are a few considerations to your question:
- Email is far and away the most popular and easiest way to communicate with clients. However, if your emails are too same-old, same-old and they have information that the clients are probably getting from a number of financial services firms, the clients have no reason to spend time reading them. If you want to continue with email, consider doing something more interesting and eye-catching. Could you embed a video in the email? Could someone on your team write about issues like college savings but use subject line or questions for enticement – “Read more to find out the seven biggest mistakes most every college student makes at one point or another” for example is more enticing than, “College funding is difficult for everyone. Read ideas on how to make it more effective.” Consider some marketing spin to make clicking through more appealing.
- Ask your clients what they want and how they want it delivered. Your associate could be right about the desire for texts, but what if she/he isn’t? Instead of guessing, you are now armed with some data that shows clients are not considering what you are sending important enough to click through and read. Use this information as an opportunity to reach out and ask them what they would like to receive. Maybe the information isn’t appealing, or maybe the medium isn’t right, but we’d be guessing to try and figure it out. Better to ask the people you are trying to entice!
- Insert more personal aspects of communication. You might already be doing this, and didn’t mention it, but how about replacing those one-to-one emails with a phone call? Or a cup of coffee/lunch to just talk about the relationship and what they are interested in hearing about? I know it is probably easiest and most time efficient to send the email but if you aren’t being effective, is it really a time saving approach? Create a list of clients and take 2-3 a week you could call or invite out for a non-portfolio review catch up.
Dear Bev,
I’m tired of millennials. I run a call center for an asset manager and we staff by hiring people right out of college and teaching them the ropes. In the past (I’ve been doing this for 15 years now) we had people eager to learn and clear about the fact that this is a stepping stone to bigger things for many people but you have to work hard to get to the next opportunity. Today, these new hires want the world – they never just do something without asking “why?” and they are lazy. Our firm is a 24/7 environment where my boss, or my boss’ boss might call me or email me at all hours of the night and on weekends. These younger folks have made it clear that once they leave work, they are done. It isn’t our culture but we can’t seem to find enough people right out of college who value what we do.
Bill P.
Dear Bill,
I feel like I should start singing the Bob Dylan tune, The Times They Are A-Changin' in order to answer your question. I have probably said this in this column in the past, but as a college professor who teaches undergraduate students every term, I cannot personally relate to the idea they are all unwilling or disinterested in learning and working hard. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule and I’m sure many may be hoping for a better job, more pay and a better lifestyle right off the bat. They’ve likely seen their parents working too hard so they want to live a different life. This is a natural reaction when you’ve grown up seeing what you don’t want, you try and find what you do.
They are also setting boundaries early in their career. I understand your culture of 24/7, and having spent my career in this business I’ve lived that way for many decades, however I’m not sure it is the right thing to do. There is something to be said for having downtime and there has been a lot of research over the years (https://hbr.org/2015/08/the-research-is-clear-long-hours-backfire-for-people-and-for-companies) that shows managers and employees might even be less effective if they don’t have any separation from work. I’m not saying you have the power to change your culture, I’m just saying you might want to be prepared that this issue will come up again and again and they are not exactly wrong to raise it.
I also think the “why?” question is an okay one. I’m a big believer in context – tell someone why something matters, why it connects to something else and why it’s important and they are much more likely to be engaged and on board. It doesn’t sound like, from what you describe here, these folks are being insubordinate or even saying they won’t do it, they just want to understand the context for some things. It might be helpful to think about broadening your education – if you are like most inside sales teams, you probably focus on the product background and the sales techniques. Consider adding information about the firm, why you do what you do, how it compares to your competitors, how this role fits into the overall schema. The more you share, they more they will care.
So, I probably didn’t say anything here that you wanted me to say! I haven’t made your life any easier. I just encourage you to consider there may be another side to the story and it could be that reframing, or rethinking your approach is the healthiest thing to do – for the millennials and for you.
Beverly Flaxington co-founded The Collaborative, a consulting firm devoted to business building for the financial services industry in 1995. In 2008, she co-founded Advisors Trusted Advisor to offer dedicated practice management resources to advisors, planners and wealth managers. She is currently an adjunct professor at Suffolk University teaching undergraduate students Leadership & Social Responsibility. Beverly is a Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst (CPBA) and Certified Professional Values Analyst (CPVA).
She has spent over 25 years in the investment industry and has been featured in Selling Power Magazine and quoted in hundreds of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, MSNBC.com, Investment News and Solutions Magazine for the FPA. She speaks frequently at investment industry conferences and is a speaker for the CFA Institute.
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