Key takeaways:

• Today’s consumers have become accustomed to highly personalized customer experiences across all industries.
• Financial professionals will need to focus on refining all aspects of their customer experience (CX) to meet – and exceed – the elevated expectations of clients and
• To deliver a truly client-centric CX, advisors first need to identify their unique business tranche and develop an in-depth understanding of those clients’ needs.

Like many industries, financial services has undergone a significant transformation over the last 15 years in terms of customer expectations. Whether they’re placing an order on Amazon, streaming movies from Netflix, or ordering an Uber, today’s consumers expect the entire experience to be effortless, seamless, and – perhaps most importantly – highly personalized. We have all become accustomed to a client experience, or CX, that is designed with us at the center. In this environment, you must ask yourself: “How am I putting my clients at the center of how I market my business, bring clients onboard, and address their needs over the course of our relationship?" Make no mistake – your clients are getting an experience, whether it’s intentional or not. Shaping that experience is entirely up to you. If you’re ready take charge of your client experience to make your business stand out from the competition, following are three action steps you can take.

1. Discover your best clients

Your best clients can be grouped by a specific set of attributes that you cater to exclusively. For example: “social media influencers that have multiple streams of income.” This is also called your unique business tranche, or UBT. Clients within your UBT are not necessarily those who have the most assets with you or generate the most revenue; rather, they are the ones you get excited about working with. Success comes easily when working with them, and they can’t stop talking about how much they enjoy working with you because it is such a great fit. By identifying your UBT and developing an in-depth understanding of what matters most to them, you can focus on creating a CX that is tailored specifically to their preferences, needs, and values.

2. Conduct deep, meaningful research

Now that you’re focused on your best clients, you need to deepen your understanding of what they expect from a financial services provider. There are more than 240,000 financial professionals in the U.S.¹, and most of them have access to the same products as you. Why should clients choose you over one of those hundreds of thousands of other advisors? Again, to answer that question, you must attempt to determine what they expect from the experience and how it aligns with their values, goals, and unique financial situation. If you’re connected to your clients on social media, one helpful exercise is to pay attention to their like, comment, and post activity. Keep in mind: this involves more than simply scrolling past each post. Take the time to observe the details of the accounts and companies your clients are interacting with. The details of these accounts are what your clients are being conditioned to expect. Do those accounts promote products/ideas that save time? Do they have a click-to-call phone number on their websites? These are examples of ideas to consider when enhancing your own CX to attract and retain your ideal clients.

3. Focus on refining one interaction your target audience has with your firm

Whether it’s your office décor, your review process, or your technology stack, every interaction clients have with your firm makes an impression. Choose just one of those interactions to focus on and modify it to fit the needs and wants of your target audience. Keeping your scope to one area makes the process less overwhelming and allows you to be thorough and intentional in your efforts to refine it. One obvious area of focus is your website. As the first interaction many prospects will have with your firm – and the place clients will likely visit regularly – your website is at the heart of your CX. That’s why it’s critical to make your web experience as inviting and user-friendly as possible. This is especially true if one of the defining characteristics of your UBT is “not tech-savvy.” After you complete these three steps, you may find that you’d like some additional prospecting help from an expert. That’s where we come in. To learn more about our Modern Prospecting resources, contact your Janus Henderson sales director.

¹ Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2021.