The fourth ‘Principal Business Champions’ contest got an overwhelming response from the IFA community.
‘Principal Business Champions –Winning retention strategies’ is a joint initiative of Principal Pnb Mutual Fund and Cafemutual to help advisors learn from the best practices of other IFAs.
Here are the ‘Winning retention’ strategies that got the highest votes.
Winner on website: Shifali Satsangee, FundsVedaa
Having a truthful and courageous conversation has helped me maintain a good relationship with my clients:
While we listen to them with empathy, we are also strict with our clients when required. Our ability to say ‘no’ has only enhanced our clients and potential clients’ faith in us. We firmly refuse to accept investments from clients who have loans to pay and instead advise them to first repay the debts, get sufficiently covered, even if it means losing business. This approach has held us in good stead with clients realizing our integrity and coming back to us after the needful is done.
We advise clients to chase goals and not returns. Goal based investing, investing patience along with investing money, staying away from predictions and cultivating long term thinking have held my clients in good stead.
A client’s problem and your solution is the catalyst for a positive makeover in your company. My key learning has been that dissatisfied clients seldom complain. They just walk away and you will never know why. While they may not tell you what is wrong, they will certainly tell plenty of others. Therefore, we never compromise on service levels.
Winner on Facebook: K Jayaraman
Help people with their investments even if they are not your clients
I still follow the golden client retention tips given by my grandfather way back when I began my career as a UTI agent. He advised me to guide people with their investments even if they were not my clients. At times, I have gone out of my way to resolve financial issues of such people. Seeing my commitment, many people became my clients.
Secondly, I always try to be courteous and punctual with my clients. I ensure that there is no delay from my end in delivering services to them. At times, I follow up with the fund houses to resolve service related queries such as non-issuance of NAV, delay in redemption request and so on.
Another thing, which I do is to make my clients understand their financial goals and link their investment with such goals. This helps in creating long term client relationships.
Winner on Twitter: Shiva Prasad Konduru, Warangal, Telangana
Be transparent to gain trust
The first thing I do to retain client is to disclose my commission on investments. This helps me in building trust right from the beginning. Many clients appreciate this.
Once you have a good relationship with your clients, the next step is to be their friend. I help my clients by going out of my way. Let me share a recent incident. The wife of a client suddenly went into labour a week before the due date. Since it was a Friday night, we did not have the option to withdraw money from his liquid funds. Without thinking twice, I paid the hospital bills. Such small favours have helped me strengthen my relationship with clients.
Another thing I do to retain clients is to be blunt at times. I push my clients to invest in mutual funds with the money they plan to spend on the birthday parties. This encourages them to stay put for long term.
