Have you ever used www.tripadvisor.com when making holiday plans?
If you’re not familiar with TripAdvisor, it’s a website that provides reviews for thousands of leisure businesses such as resorts, hotels and restaurants. The reviews are provided by people who have stayed in the hotel or eaten at the restaurant. All reviews are posted – even the ones that aren’t complimentary.
This honest feedback is so powerful that many hospitality businesses make it their clear goal to surprise and delight their clientele, hoping for a positive review in return. On the flip side, businesses who receive a bad review, invest significant time and effort to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
How’s this relevant to you? Well imagine there was a TripAdvisor for financial advisers? It doesn’t exist today but there’s a real possibility that one day it might. Imagine if a client, before they came to see you or agreed to implement your advice, visited a site that had reviews from your present and past clients.
While TripAdvisor for financial advisers doesn’t exist today in an online format – it certainly exists in an everyday context. It’s the clients that refer you to their family and friends, or your centres of influence that refer their clients.
So how can we learn from TripAdvisor?
Well let’s begin by aiming to surprise and delight clients and centres of influence so much that they would be prepared to give you a five star review on a publicly available website – our theoretical TripAdvisor for financial advisers. If they were prepared to do this, then they’ll be prepared to recommend you to their family and friends, or their clients.
In an earlier blog I wrote about the FOFA Fitness Index. Now we’re in a post-FOFA environment, I think it’s time to take the TripAdvisor Test. So consider this:
- How engaged are both your long-term and new clients? An easy gauge is to survey your clients on a regular basis.
- Do your clients know what they pay for and value it? This is especially important now we must abide the obligations of Fee Disclosure Statements.
- Do these clients refer you to their valued relationships?
- Would these clients be prepared to publicly advocate your services in the form of a testimonial?
- Would these clients be prepared to post this testimonial on social media? For example, your LinkedIn profile.
By following this simple test, you’ll be well on your way to building a platform for sustainable organic growth in your business for many years to come.
Mark is the General Manager of Financial Wisdom. Mark joined Financial Wisdom as General Manager in 2010 succeeding his role at Macquarie Private Wealth as a Division Director and Head of Business Development. Prior to this he was the Chief Operating Officer of ING’s Advice Business in Australia.
