Make Client Reviews Part Of Your Sales Strategy

Client reviews take place, at some level, in most financial services businesses. They have become ingrained in the industry as something your business must do to fulfill your promise to clients, to meet fiduciary obligations, and to increase sales.

Yet, as we talk with hundreds of financial service professionals what we noticed is that although reviews are accepted as a necessary element, many financial services professionals don't have a well-designed process to ensure that reviews are successful sales tools.

Three common signs that reviews are not designed to be a successful sales tool for your business include:

• "I didn't know you did that; I just bought it from someone else." These may be the worst words a financial services professional could hear from a client. Industry statistics show that clients buy from their financial professional 5-7 times over the period of being a client. Reviews are a perfect time to educate clients about their financial risks and opportunities. When you don't use a structure, such as an agenda or visual map to engage your client with what is happening in their life, it's easy for reviews to get off topic. Even worse, is for a review to become a routine walk through existing policies and investments. Without an intentional conversation to discover the dynamics of your client's life, important pieces of what your business can do to protect their assets and their families will be ignored. When you carefully design the structure of your reviews, you help clients understand how your business can be a bigger part of their overall financial solution and, as a bonus, increase revenue.
   
• One of the biggest complaints from clients is they never hear from their agent/advisor. When a client gets the attention they need, you have a happy client and one that will be loyal, and stay with you. You don't hear about a client leaving to work with another financial professional because their old one was contacting them too much! Your review process should be designed to build loyalty by ensuring ALL clients have the attention they need and deserve from your business. Set clear expectations with your clients on how often you will meet to review their needs, follow through with your commitment, and watch as your client retention improves!
   
• Lack of referrals. Referrals may just happen; but for the most part, referrals are given from satisfied clients when they are sought. Reviews are the perfect time to reaffirm the value that your business creates for a client. Once your client is reminded of what you do for them it's time to ask for the referral. Look at the design of your reviews and ensure that your review process is structured to discuss the value that your business creates along with the language to ask for referrals. 

Don't miss the opportunity to design your client reviews to benefit your sales strategy. When your client review process has a flawed design, your business will miss opportunities. Contact us to talk to a business coach about redesigning your review process to increase revenue, improve client retention, and create additional referral opportunities.

PS: As a quick reminder, when client reviews are designed as a process, and not dependent on the agent/advisor to facilitate, your business will create additional capacity and the value of reviews will multiply in your business.