Marketing guides such as the work of Solomon et al (2011) remind us that services, such as the provision of financial planning services, have the characteristics of intangibility, inseparability and variability.
These characteristics create problems for the financial planning business wanting to engage clients and position as the solution of choice as well as charge a fee commensurate with the degree of work involved and the expertise of the service provider.
Why would a client pay a premium for something that isn't there?
How can a client assess that you have done a good job, when the outcome of your work (a plan for retirement in 20 years, a full insurance plan that is effected on the future passing of the sole breadwinner) is either a) many years into an ever increasingly uncertain future or b) something they really don't want to ever contemplate happening?!
The intangibility of the service that a financial planner provides means that customers can not see, touch, experience the "product" as they could with for example with a new flat screen TV. Further the inseparability of your service means that clients can not experience your services without being involved in the process which means they need to engage with you and your staff. The "moments of truth" in the delivery of financial planning services are a daily occurance.
And after all of that no matter your best intentions or the fact that you may be dealing with the same client and say performing the same task such as the annual review of their insurance or investment portfolio the performance of you and your staff will vary.
What can you do about this to reassure your clients but also importantly be even more different (than you already are if you have been following the tips from PCE) from your competitors in the provision of your financial planning services?
1) Dealing with the intangibility of insurance and financial planning.
Solution: Make it tangible.
You need to re-assure your clients about the service that you are about to provide. Visually, this starts with the look of your offices. How is it furnished? Decorations. Art-work. What's the quality of your logo, business cards, letterheads, corporate brochures? (oh....do you have one?). What about your staff? How are they dressed? How are you dressed? Do you look the part? Do they? Do you have a corporate uniform? Should you? What would it say about your business? Might give people the impression that you are here for the long haul. Might focus the client more on the business proposition and less on the individuals who make up the business.
And just where are your certificates, awards, press clippings (oh...do you have any of them?), white papers you have written (you've done one of those yes, positioning you as a specialist in your field of expertise?)...are they displayed in your offices?
What about that testimonial book? A dream board perhaps of your clients living out their dreams after the plans you put in place for them came to fruition. That's in the reception area yes?
And that website...that's a winner yes? You've got a video clip of you and your staff, there's lots of useful information, a place to sign up to more information that's of value, lots of tabs so people can find things easily, it's connected to your social media hub.
You in other words have a business that is well presented, and oozes credibility.
2) Dealing with the moments of truth
Solution: Train your staff on what is expected in delivering service to your clients and workshop with them what it is that you do and how it changes peoples lives for the better. Train them to appreciate the value of what it is that your business provides and then build systems and processes that allows them to efficiently deliver quality service.
This is harder than it looks and means a lot of work in process mapping and building a robust CRM.
3) Variability
And despite all this work you are just not going to be able to avoid things going wrong. So build your processes and follow them to try and standardise/industrialise what it is that you do, but take it as an opportunity when things go wrong. You can review your processes and you can deliver on your initial promise that you should make to your clients which is "this is what we will do if things go wrong...". It's a service promise and should be part of your initial pitch in your engagement letter before the client has even become a client.
And if you really want to test your services get a friend to test drive your staff and other like businesses and find out what you do well, what you can improve and what gaps you need to fill.
Do all of this and people will pay and pay a premium for something that isn't there.
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