Why It Matters When Advisors Can’t Spend Enough Time With Clients

In the world of helping people with their money, advisors like you often run out of time. Important things, like spending time with clients, get pushed aside because of other administrative tasks. A recent survey found that 28% of advisors feel they don’t have enough time for their clients. That’s a big problem because good relationships with clients are super important. That’s where PreciseFP comes in.

In this blog, we’ll talk about why advisors struggle with time, why hanging out with clients is crucial, and how PreciseFP can help you get rid of administrative tasks and have more time for what really matters. Get ready to speed up your work and have more free time!

Survey Finds Advisors Aren’t Spending Enough Time With Clients

When advisors are limited on time, they are inevitably hard-pressed to deliver the right experiences and relationships clients need. Unfortunately, it can become a downward spiral that’s harder and harder to get out of. Among the time-pressed advisors, the J.D. Power survey found they spend an average of 41% more time each month than their peers on tasks like administrative duties or compliance.

Unsurprisingly, the survey found these advisors also rank lower than their colleagues when it comes to their Net Promoter Score (NPS) on a -100 to 100 scale. Employee advisors struggling to find time with clients average an NPS 27 points lower than advisors who do have enough client time. Independent advisors average 30 points lower than advisors with enough client time.

Another wrench worsening things is changing advisor demographics. For example, one in five (20%) advisors anticipate being five years or less away from retirement, and the average age of U.S. financial advisors is 56 years old. Additionally, many advisors aren’t certain they’ll stay at their current firm. Rather than indicating they “definitely” will be at their current firm in the next one to two years, the survey found 30% of employee advisors say they “probably” will be at their current firm.

What does this mean for current wealth management leadership? They need to demonstrate strong leadership to improve existing advisor-client relationships, as well as give advisors a reason to stay at their firm for the long term. The survey found the following reasons for staying at a firm:

Strong culture
Company leadership
Professional development support
Training and technology

With so much set to shift in the coming years, firms that succeed in the long term must address these challenges as they come, especially as they affect client continuity between advisors.

Reasons Why Clients Fire Their Advisor

Clients don’t like it when advisors seem like they aren’t spending enough time with them. Finances are deeply personal, and unless your clients feel heard, understood, and informed, they’re unlikely to stick around for long. Advisors need to prioritize providing timely responses to questions and giving proactive updates about investments — things they can’t do very well if they’re pressed for the time to do it.

Not prioritizing client care is a huge mistake that can mark the beginning of the end for the client and advisor relationship. A recent survey found clients fire their advisor when they are unhappy with the following:

Quality of financial advice/services (32%)
Quality of relationship with their advisor (21%)
Absence of quality communication (9%)

The things each of those has in common? They depend on time. Advisors and firms need robust internal resources and processes set in place to handle the back office work so they can return to the focus where it matters: providing quality services and communication to clients in service of their relationship.

The Solution: PreciseFP

As we wrap up, it’s clear that PreciseFP stands out as a versatile solution, offering more than just data gathering capabilities. While many advisors leverage it as a powerful tool for efficiently collecting client information, it goes beyond that. PreciseFP serves as a comprehensive service agreement solution, a source for delivering documents, handling Form CRS, disclosures, e-signatures, and ensuring secure document downloads. This all-in-one solution simplifies your workflow, eliminating the need to open and copy-paste across multiple platforms. With PreciseFP, it’s a make-once-and-send-to-all type of solution, streamlining your processes and maximizing efficiency. Start your free trial today!