Advisers ‘won’t survive’ if they don’t reassess client reviews

In a new opinion piece published on ifa, AstuteWheel director Dr Michael Topper wrote that planners’ main focus must be on what both the client and compliance require.

“Advisers simply will not survive if they continue to spend hours preparing for each client review meeting. Particularly if all those reviews amount to a statement of the client’s position, a portfolio review over the past 12 months, and not much more,” Dr Topper wrote.

“Clients just won’t see the value.”

Dr Topper argued that advisers require an easy-to-learn software that can make the experience easier for clients and can help then better understand their situation, goals and progress.

“The world has been subjected to volatile situations over recent times. Settling clients down quickly has become a matter of priority for advisers. Clients contact their advisers to seek comfort around their investments and whether their retirement and other goals are still able to be achieved,” Dr Topper wrote.

“Evidence is required that changes in legislation, market conditions, and/or the client’s own circumstances have been assessed and that you have considered the implications for their current financial plan, planned for the meeting, and prepared a useful review document.

“If your current process is to do all of this manually, or enter information from scratch into documents, spreadsheets, or software, then you should consider updating your process to include software that has modelling calculators that you can use live with clients.”

Read Dr Topper’s full opinion piece here.

Neil Griffiths

Neil is the Deputy Editor of the wealth titles, including ifa and InvestorDaily.

Neil is also the host of the ifa show podcast.