Recording what only you know about each client
How to write down the client knowledge that is not in the file, so the next adviser can use it.
How to write down the client knowledge that is not in the file, so the next adviser can use it.
Each long client relationship has two kinds of record. The file has the fact-find, the suitability reports and the valuations. The rest is in your head, and it is much of what makes your advice good.
For example: which son is sensible with money and which is not; what happened in 2008 that means this client will never hold that fund again; that the wife makes the decisions and the husband does the talking; that there is a grandchild with additional needs and the estate plan is built around them.
This knowledge helps a client feel known by the firm, and that affects whether they stay after you leave.
A new adviser working from the standard file can do competent work. A new adviser who has this knowledge can take on the relationship without the client having to explain their life again, which clients find the most off-putting part of a handover.
It can feel intrusive. Some of this is sensitive and some of it is opinion. Write what is relevant to the advice, in a form the client could read without embarrassment.
It does not fit the fields. Back-office systems have boxes for facts. A free-text note attached to the client record is enough; it needs to become a habit.
Nobody sees the work. Nobody bills for it and nothing goes wrong if it is skipped, until the handover, when it is too late to write.
Allow half an hour per client, once. Make it a standing item: three clients a week, at the end of each review while the details are fresh. At that rate, two years covers a three-hundred-household book.
Write down why the portfolio is shaped this way, what the client is afraid of, what you have promised them that is not in the service agreement, who else in the family matters, and what you would tell the next adviser in the car on the way back.
The last prompt is the most useful. It covers what you would say in the handover, in a form that stays on file after you leave.
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Read itSteven Bates, Director of Advisory at Equity & General, takes the first call with every adviser. Ring him on 020 8396 0486 or send a short note about your firm.