Bank Advisors In A Good Position To Build Long-Term Relationships
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Financial service companies spend millions of advertising and marketing dollars each year to attract new customers. Winning a customer, however, is the easy part. In the increasingly competitive financial services arena, keeping that customer is the challenge.
The ability to sustain a strong client relationship is predicated on three basic characteristics to the relationship: continued growth, valueand mutual trust. Any one of these characteristics can start a relationship, but it takes a commitment to all three to build and sustain a long-term one.
Growing the client relationship means staying ahead of the client's needs, not just keeping up with them. Today's banking customers are better informed, better educated and more sophisticated than customers in the past. Regardless of whether the relationship is built on providing traditional banking products and services or investment and insurance products, customers are not just looking simply to complete financial transactions. They are looking for an interactive relationship with their financial advisor to help them achieve their lifetime goals.
They expect their advisors to make recommendations that will move them more quickly to financial security, including full financial and estate planning advice. They expect you, the advisor, to live up to the promise of being a one-stop shop.
As financial organizations respond to these growing expectations, the lines between banks, brokerage firms, mutual funds and insurance companies have blurred. Large banking entities are setting their sights on being perceived as a premier national financial service organization.
Banks with an insurance offering have an advantage in establishing long-term client relationships, because insurance, by its very nature, is a long-term planning vehicle designed to accumulate and protect wealth.
Providing continuing value means striving to do what's best for the customer. Understanding clients clearly and making certain they are offered the most appropriate and effective financial solutions available is key.
This hinges on listening to the customer, understanding exactly what their current position is financially–from both an investment and a planning perspective–and knowing what long-term financial goals they wish to accomplish.
Establishing trust is an area where banks have a competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded financial marketplace.
