Share this
Mister Wong
Digg
Del.icio.us
Slashdot
Furl
Yahoo
Technorati
Newsvine
Googlize this
Blinklist
Facebook
Wikio
Hear this text
Print
E-mail
What is good service?Service is one of the most important issues for any financial planner. We have dedicated this edition of Blue Chip to client service and aptly have called it, “The Service Issue”.
All clients want good service, but what exactly is “good service”? Everyone seems to know what bad service is, but the counter is very illusive. It becomes even more complicated if we begin investigating how we can deliver the right kind of service to the right kind of people in the right manner. And further to this, it has to be done profitably.
We have asked a number of service-orientated industry professionals to share with us their insights on the topic. Since service can be seen as a universal concept and to make it more interesting, we also approached two people from outside the financial services industry to share their views on service.
We deliberately gave our contributors much leeway to enable them to show us what they think are important with regard to this topic. Their comments make for some very interesting reading which can be well utilised in any financial planning practice.
Louis Vorster of Momentum kicks off by sharing his view of how dynamic the service delivery mechanism can be and what financial planners can do to keep up with this constant change.
Isabel de Moura of Absa Investments uses hard data in a well-researched article to support her views on what people want and what the best way could be to give it.
Previously awarded Financial Planner of the Year, Johann Maree from the Institute of Practice Management offers a few concrete ways of improving the client experience in your practice.
Nicola Kleyn, a Marketing lecturer from GIBS, provides a more academic slant on service by showing us step-by-step how the service providers can differentiate themselves from the competition.
“The future is not what it used to be” is how Michelle Möller from Glacier begins her article. She uses this theme of change to highlight a few things that can be used to keep up with clients’ changing needs and expectations.
Elke Pienaar of Barnard Jacobs Mellet gives us a concise summary of what some of the leading global wealth research documents report on the service issue. As we can see from this article, people from all over the world feel that good service is a critical element in client relationships.
We all know how important trust is in any relationship. Hylton Kallner from Discovery indicates that the trust element is important more than ever. Service providers should not only strive to gain trust from clients, but relentlessly work to retain that trust.
Nani Ferreira, CEO of Camisalife, shares her perspective on service. Camisa is a tailor of the finest bespoke shirts and suits. It may not be a financial institution, but it knows a thing or two about service.
It is also interesting to hear from a service provider of high calibre from outside the industry. A regular contributor, Rob Macdonald of Xchange Solutions, writes how the industry has changed and how service has been affected. His formula of: Trust + Communication = Great Service may appear simple, but if a financial planner can get this right, he/she is set for success.
And last but not least, Cassandra De Nobrega of Investec confirms how important the personal touch is when looking after clients.
We hope you find The Service Issue of Blue Chip useful and that you will be able to implement some of the practices in your daily dealings with clients. If you think we can improve on our service to you, our reader, please feel free to e-mail me your comments, criticism or suggestions:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
