“As part of this working group we had a company who we engaged with to get client feedback. Interestingly enough, they loved the agenda, but they still expected some paperwork. And the reason they said they wanted paperwork was for legal reasons.
"They wanted to be able to refer to something in writing, which is probably a demonstration of still, at that time, the lack of trust in financial advice. However, nowadays I know the advice relationship that I have with my clients, and the advice relationship that you have with your clients is one that is built on trust. So I think that's probably something that would be less needed.
“Clients remember what you say and the way you say it. They're looking for you to give them your word and to stand by your word. And so they're looking for things in that conversation that are more than just the written document.
"Other feedback was they wanted a copy of the recording again, which is great, so they can go back and listen and think about things. They preferred this and they assumed it would reduce cost,” he explained.
Jack asked the room how many people were comfortable with recording their meetings with the large majority of advisers in the room raising their hand.
Cost and time saving
Jack also discussed how recording meetings could reduce costs for advisers such as with their PII.
He said: “Why don't you go to your provider and say, if we get a dispute, and we need to gather the evidence from the client interactions, and we're able to provide you with a video recording of the verbal and non-verbal cues of each of the meetings, knowing what it costs to gather this information, would you offer us a discounted premium or a reduced excess? Guess what? They say reduced excess, because you're asking the right question.”
Jack also mentioned how by adopting this approach, paraplanners could save 50 per cent of their time.
“All the studies we did with paraplanners, they've saved half the time that they spent on research and strategy. They basically said that they could spend more time doing the things that they love doing. One large firm said they basically could see twice as many clients. What would you give to be able to service twice as many clients in your firm? It's a massive difference,” he added.
alina.khan@ft.com
