How to Retain Clients

Hold on to them by keeping them in the loop.

By Crystal Alford-Cooper, CFP

I’ve been an investment advisor with Law & Associates Inc., in Glen Echo, Md., for 17 years. We have $150 million in assets under management, with three and even four generations of clients under our advisement. Our practice focuses on retention, which, if you can believe it, starts with answering the phone. You won’t get voice mail or an answering machine at our office during business hours. This goes a long way in establishing a connection with prospects who call our office, as well as in maintaining the relationship we have with our 500 clients.

We have a very competent staff. Sally Law is the principal of the firm and we all work together on her client base, so when a client calls our office, anyone in the office can take care of his issues.

Of course, communication with our clients extends well beyond just answering the phone. They want access to the same information that we have to make financial decisions for them. In that vein, we invite portfolio managers and private money managers to our offices to speak to the clients whose money they manage. Usually, we’ll have about 50 clients listen to one of these managers during lunch. The portfolio manager will talk about trends in the industry and give us insights into how he grows assets. Our clients get a personalized look at how their money is taken care of. We do that about three to four times a year, depending on our schedule.

We charge a retainer to our clients, but regardless of how much money the client has invested with us or how long he has been our client, the retainer is equally as valuable. We send summaries of our meetings to all our clients—from the high-net-worth clients to the $50-per-month clients. These summaries keep the air clear about how we plan to go about shaping their financial future, and the clients get a timeline as to what we’ve discussed. Every client gets at least one meeting with us a year to review and plan. Maybe some parents are planning for their child’s wedding. In many cases, the parents and the child are both clients, so we have two sets of priorities. How do we help the parents afford the wedding, and how can we help the child prepare for married life and potentially children of his own? These summaries help us guide our clients toward financial freedom and happiness.

As I mentioned before, I’ve been with this firm for 17 years, and we still have our first client.