Do you really want to know your client?

Thinking beyond tomorrow is more than just a strap line. It is fundamental to the way we do business to deliver exceptional client service and flexible wealth structuring solutions that stand the test of time.
This is what differentiates us from
our competitors.

Three years ago, our firm took the business decision to ask clients, key intermediaries and our own people for their views to better understand what they thought we did well and what areas they believed we should focus on and look to improve as we build the business for the future.

We appointed an independent financial services research consultancy to undertake the work on our behalf. The ongoing results have enabled us to better anticipate clients’ future needs and provide the right solutions for them and their families. That is not to say we were not already doing this, but with solid client insight research we have improved the way we work.

Our prime focus is to consistently provide the most professional solution and offer the very best service. We strongly believe that the best way to maintain our reputation is to ask our clients how we are doing.

After all, while knowledge is key, knowing how best to use it is ultimately more important. The trust industry today faces numerous challenges including tough competition. Every firm wants to be seen as the best and most respected, but some lack vision and direction and simply don’t know which way to turn.

We have found that it is better to work out the long-term objective first then identify the best way to achieve it
by using strategic focus and insight.

Understanding people

With this in mind, we decided to embark on a programme to help us understand our clients and key intermediaries better. It was something that had rarely been tried before in the trust industry sector and was a leap of faith that we were prepared to take.

We realised that we needed to find out what our clients and intermediaries were thinking, how we were doing and how we could do it better. This involved looking at staff training, systems and client relationships, and coming up with a strategy to move forward, be different and generate more business.

And that is what we did. From the first round in 2011, the responses have been commercially interesting, and not just because of the information they provided. Each participant said that they would do it again, which, we believe, is the highest accolade a firm can receive in this type of process. It has already helped lead to the development of a new identity and distinct vision: thinking beyond tomorrow.

We now have the foundations of a strategic purpose for quantifying opportunities, targeting new areas and identifying niche business segments.

Furthermore, it is also helping us to evolve our solutions and sector-specific offerings for today’s markets, as well as being able to anticipate commercial trends and prepare for them.

We now have a basis by which we can and will track our future successes. To that end, the actions taken by the firm in the coming months and years will be evaluated by this same audience to see what difference it made and what more can be done in the future.

Already, we have invested heavily into our systems, refined our processes and trained and nurtured our people. It has placed us in a position of being able to challenge existing work methods so that the business is always forward-thinking and performing efficiently, always with the client in mind.

Business efficiencies have enabled our people to focus more of their time on their clients, whether that is communicating with them and their advisers, or reviewing structures and administering their affairs. We are committed to adding value wherever
we can.

Consistent feedback

As with any research programme, the secret to its success is obtaining regular and consistent feedback from clients and advisers. We now carry out research on an annual basis and find that this is crucial for the validity of the programme.

Last year, the focus was on
our people adding value to clients,
with the creation of a set of client service principles. In reality, is excellent service enough and what does that mean anyway?

It is certainly a good start, but in a world where everybody is trying to differentiate their service models, or in markets where, for example, services from different providers are similar in nature, or price, or shape, excellent service is something clients should expect and demand as a norm.

Excellent service is always doing what is promised and where possible, going the extra mile. It’s about doing it all consistently. Whoever speaks to you should give the same answers to the same questions. It’s about embracing complaints or critiques and comments, as that’s the only way we will learn how to improve.

Our research programmes conclude similar themes each year: clients, whether current or prospective, want a service that is of good and consistent quality, is convenient, swift, to the point, cost-effective, communicated to them appropriately and simply, and addressing their situational needs.

The proof of that particular pudding involves us, the service provider, keeping our promises, being accurate, admitting when we’ve got things wrong and finding resolutions. Clients require us to be competent, professional, responsive, reliable and credible.

Not 'service'

A great ‘client experience’ (note the exclusion of the word service) is about the very fabric of an organisation: the warp and the weave, something that always permeates the essence of the company, whatever you do, whoever you are, whenever or wherever it takes place and whomever you touch. It is much more endearing and lasting than simply ‘client service’.

The exclusion of one word – service – is far more than semantics. A great ‘client experience’ is where everyone you speak to in the organisation delivers everything you expected, demanded and hoped for as a client and far more besides, every single time. It is so consistent that it becomes unconditionally associated with your brand. When you reflect on your experience, you judge others against it in broad terms, i.e. ‘I get that when I deal with Fred Bloggs Ltd’, or you might judge others against it in specific terms, i.e. ‘I never got that when I was a Jones mobile client’.

That exceptional ‘client experience’ is about all the things every single person in the organisation says and does. Everybody is a contributor to this experience. They live and breathe the values of the product or service and the business, they believe in them and that always comes across in everything they do and say. Passion, empathy, understanding, and everyone sharing the same set of overall values and beliefs, are key ingredients.

An excellent client experience has a significantly higher chance of creating lasting loyalty and genuine recommendation as it is based on consistent excellence, a single voice, client-centric processes and a single-minded vision. We identified our core principles and values that clearly set out our commitment to our clients and their advisers (see 'core principles' image above).

Having successfully completed three consecutive years of insight research work and consistently taken on board and acted on what clients and their advisers are looking for from a professional wealth structuring firm, we now understand far better the journey that we must go on to consistently
add value to our clients.

Like all journeys, they have their twists and turns, but we are striving to deliver a continuously improving bespoke experience.

Matthew Morel is head of marketing at Hawksford