Specialist consultant, Chris Unwin, has challenged advisers to reconsider how they structure their risk advice processes in the wake of more flexible client communication options flowing from the Covid-19 pandemic.
For many years, Unwin – who works with advisers in helping them develop their soft skills repertoire – has advocated a 12-step client engagement process he says delivers great results in a win-win scenario for both advisers and their clients.
Given the events over the last two years, however, Unwin has re-shaped and updated his message to advisers to accommodate what, for many clients and prospective clients, he says is now a much more acceptable remote style of adviser/client relationship.
…there exists a great opportunity to re-think and condense an advice process that will continue to serve [clients’] best interests
While at pains to point out that some prospective clients – perhaps many – will still prefer face-to-face meetings with their adviser, Unwin says for a growing cohort of clients and prospective clients who are now much more comfortable (and competent) with video and other remote communication methods, there exists a great opportunity to re-think and condense an advice process that will continue to serve their best interests, while delivering a more efficient, repeatable and equally successful outcome for the adviser.
Condensed from 12 steps, Unwin challenges advisers to now consider the following six-step client engagement process for risk advice when delivering life insurance solutions in the best interests of clients for whom remote relationships are now more acceptable:
Step One
- Position protection within the context of their financial plan
- Timing: Off the back of the Financial Services Guide
Step Two
- Preposition the “Wants Analysis”
- Timing: Immediately after step one
Step Three
- Preposition the “Percentage Concept”
- Timing: During the fact find when talking about the client’s super
Step Four
- Conduct the “Wants Analysis”
- Timing: The fact find
Step Five
- Present the Circle of Safety recommendations
- Timing: Second client meeting
Step Six
- Trimming the platinum package to accommodate the budget
- Timing: End of the second meeting and between the second and third meeting
Unwin stresses that some of the processes outlined above may differ – possibly substantially – from the processes advisers are currently using, but he says this doesn’t mean the adviser’s processes are out of date or that Unwin is right: “It just means that there is more than one way of creating a quality experience for your clients, always being sure that whatever process you choose to use is always successfully walking the tightrope between client friendly and compliant,” says Unwin.
For advisers seeking more details – and coinciding with the relaxation of restrictions across the country, Unwin is conducting his first face-to-face adviser workshops in two years, entitled How to Gain Trust and Build Stronger Client Relationships. Advisers can click their preferred state location below for the workshops, which he will be running on the eastern seaboard at the end of May:
