I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want

This afternoon I have been preparing slides and my speech for a conference in London in November on the subject of the adviser and client world post the implementation of the Retail Distribution Review.

In one slide I have been describing the “shopping list” of items that clients are actively searching for when choosing an adviser and the reasons why they want these things.

You can imagine different people will put greater or lesser emphasis on each of the points but experience tells us that some or all of these items will be sought from the appointed adviser.

They will be looking for specialist advice from highly qualified and experienced advisers.

The financial world is a highly technically complex one bringing together as it does the taxation and investment worlds as well as all of the subjectivity associated with trying to work out what a person’s future might look like.

The general practitioner in financial intermediation does have a role to play but those who have accumulated some degree of wealth and whose overall situation is “complex” will definitely seek out specialists.

It is the clients money it always has been and always will be so the old fashioned approach where the adviser somehow feels insulted if the client asks too many questions about what is happening to their portfolio is redundant in the modern world.

The client will want some degree of active involvement in the investment decision making process for their pension and or investment portfolio.

They will certainly want to understand risk, reward and volatility and the adviser will absolutely want to know about the clients capacity for loss.

What impact might various investment outcomes have on the ability of the client to achieve their financial planning goals?

If a product solution is recommended the client will want full understanding of that product and why it is recommended.

They will also expect the adviser to put equal emphasis on the disadvantages as well as the advantages (there are always both) of any course of financial action.

Advisers of course will commit to only recommending products that they understand themselves and which are understandable to the client.

My final point was that the client will want regular and meaningful reporting both online in respect of valuations and face to face with an intensive review agenda.

These are the things that the client really, really wants from their adviser and there is no reason in this day and age why they should not get what they want.

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