As the outlook for curbing the pandemic in the U.S. improves and the economy reopens, financial advisors are spending a lot of time thinking about what their businesses will look like moving forward.
Will we go back to our pre-pandemic operating models? Or are there things we learned over the past 15 months that we can incorporate into our practices more permanently?
For my part, I don’t see how we can ever go back to the way things were — not entirely, at least. If you believe in silver linings, and I do, then there are things the pandemic taught us that made us better as advisors and as humans — namely, how to connect with clients on a deeper, more meaningful level.
Why wouldn’t we carry that lesson forward?
I realize that may sound surprising. How could we possibly have connected better with clients virtually than we did in-person? I’ll admit, going into the pandemic, I wondered the same thing myself. I was worried that the relationships we’d worked so hard to build with people over coffees, lunches and office visits would suffer.
They didn’t.
In fact, a shifting of priorities on the part of our clients, coupled with a creative and proactive approach by our team, resulted in even stronger client relationships.
As leisure travel, daily commutes, fundraising dinners and never-ending lists of kid activities came to a screeching halt last spring, our clients had more time in their upended schedules for deeper conversations with friends and family, and with us, their advisors.
At the same time, uncertainty about the impact and duration of the pandemic created a period of market turbulence, prompting clients to reach out more than before for reassurance and advice. Combined, those two phenomena allowed us to take our client relationships to an entirely new level. Here are a few ways our team and some of our fellow RBC Wealth Management advisors did that:
- We embraced video and kicked audio calls to the curb. The ability to see our clients’ faces was so important to understanding where they were really at during this crisis. They, too, could see us and know that we were listening to their concerns and that we cared. As the world returns to normal and clients begin traveling again, we hope to prioritize video over audio calls when we can’t meet in person so that we can keep this deeper connection alive.
- We allowed for more time for each meeting. Whereas we used to have only a few minutes with clients, all of a sudden we had larger chunks of uninterrupted time where we could really get to know them – their hopes, their dreams, their fears. These dedicated blocks of time allowed us to accomplish much more for our clients this year because we could go deeper in customizing their wealth plans and considering every aspect of their financial scenarios. As we move closer to in-person meetings with clients again, we hope that those meetings will continue to be longer than they have been in the past.
- We created meaningful experiences for our clients. If a client told us they were struggling with working at home with kids, we sent their kids an activity, such as a 2020 time capsule worksheet to help capture a significant time in their lives. For those working from home, we offered to drop off coffee, breakfast or lunch. If they had a small business, we tried to support their business by making purchases out of our own pockets.
- We expanded beyond financial. We provided clients with information on delivery options if they needed groceries, household necessities or prescriptions. We sent clients information on apps that helped them stay social and engaged with family and friends. For those who weren’t tech savvy, we offered to help walk them through the download process. Understanding that clients may need help connecting to other services is something that we think should continue once the pandemic lifts.
- We got creative with fun events. From virtual wine tastings that included bottle shipments to a client’s front door to granting access to premiere virtual events that we sponsored — such as the Song Suffragettes livestream performance — we did what we could to bring a little joy to clients’ days.
While some elements that enabled us to deepen relationships with clients will disappear as we return to the busy, social lives we enjoyed pre-pandemic, the ways we found to connect with those clients don’t have to. Just as we adapted our service models heading into COVID, we can easily adapt again heading out.
