Advisors Winning Business from Other Firms Due to a Lack of Communication
According to a Pulse Survey by brokerage firm InspereX, 82% of financial advisors said they have won business from other advisors simply because those advisors failed to communicate with their clients. Yet only 26% of advisors said that client relationships are their primary differentiator, with almost three-quarters (72%) relying on customer portfolios instead. Meanwhile, a Vanguard study found that three-quarters of consumers say the service they most seek from a financial advisor is to "develop a connection and relationship."
So why are we leaving communication and the client experience by the wayside? And how can advisors ensure their client relationships and the experiences within their process become a genuine differentiator?
Can't Find the Time to Deliver the Level of Service
Many studies show that advisors are time-poor — spending more time on administrative and compliance-oriented tasks than on actually serving clients.
On the administrative side, advisors have to navigate across multiple platforms just to get a complete picture of a client: CRMs, financial modelling tools, goal-tracking tools, and in many cases, still Excel sheets. What this means in practice is that there's no single place to understand a client's full profile. Advisors don't always know which tool to use to capture important conversations, and if something doesn't fit into a pre-configured CRM field, it ends up staying in the advisor's head — to be remembered alongside hundreds of other client details and tasks.
This leaves advisors susceptible to forgetting small details. Details that might seem insignificant to the overall financial plan, but that can have a big impact when used to engage clients between meetings and build deeper connections.
Things like: is the client keeping to their fitness schedule? Did they attend that philanthropic event they mentioned? Did they talk with their father about elder care costs? Did their five-year-old daughter have a good birthday?
These small moments help clients feel heard and foster connections that go beyond conversations about market volatility and portfolio adjustments. They build the kind of trust that makes clients more likely to act on advice when it matters.
What advisors need is a single client dashboard that captures all of this information, notifies them when important moments are coming up, and houses everything in one place — so they can act quickly and efficiently rather than trawling through multiple platforms to piece together a client's needs.
This also helps with compliance. Having a single place to show how you are acting in a client's best interests supports consumer duty requirements and Know Your Customer obligations. And if that client profile connects their needs to your key advice areas and surfaces the conversations that led to the actions you've taken, fiduciary duty is covered, too.
Being time-poor shouldn't be an excuse. The right tools can better arm advisors and their support teams with the information they need, when they need it.
Differentiating Your Client Experience
Once the basics are in place and you're communicating regularly with clients about their lives, finances, and goals, you can start building experiences that lead to deeper, more meaningful conversations. At Lumiant, we believe there are three core experiences that will help you stand out and differentiate your firm.
1. Understanding Client Motivations
We're not just talking about financial motivations or the goals of the "financial spouse." We're talking about what clients actually want to achieve by receiving meaningful advice.
Most current experiences are geared toward defining financial strategies: How much risk do they want to take? What returns are they expecting? How much do they want to leave in their estate? But this doesn't get to the why, and it only really engages clients who already have some financial knowledge.
That's why we focus on helping clients uncover the values that underpin their goals. This gives a voice to both partners in a relationship and shifts the conversation away from performance and toward life outcomes.
2. Defining Client Goals
Once you have the underlying drivers, you can define the goals that will help clients live a life aligned with their values. Many tools let you capture goals — but what will help you stand out is how you capture them.
Bring those goals to life. Get them out of spreadsheets and list formats and use images to highlight client aspirations. The more personal, the better. It could be a photo of the family outside their dream home, or the campervan they'll buy to tour the country in retirement. Ask clients to choose imagery and videos that are meaningful to them — ones that evoke the right emotions and feel genuinely inspiring. Make an event out of it, whether in a meeting or as homework that gives a couple time to think about their future together.
3. Connect the Dots to Your Financial Strategies
The final experience we recommend is aligning client values and goals to the key advice areas your firm provides. This means bringing all your services onto one screen and activating the right areas based on the individual client's needs, goals, and values.
Not only does this show clients what their best life looks like — it allows you to educate them on how you'll help them achieve it. It brings to life the financial journey they're embarking on and shows how the plan will evolve over time to meet their needs and aspirations. Most importantly, it builds trust. It shows the client that you've heard them, considered their needs, and can support them as those needs change.
Everything You Need, All in One Place
Once you've worked through these three experiences, it comes full circle back to the client profile. Housing everything in one place means you can see exactly what you're working on and why — tracking progress, sending updates, and celebrating successes when goals are achieved. It also means that anyone in your firm can communicate and engage with clients at the moments that matter most.
Don't lose clients due to a lack of communication. Make it your differentiator and use it to grow your business. Your advisors' lives will be easier — and your clients will be happier too.