Source/Contribution by : NJ Publications
The growth of a business is generally measured in terms of its sales growth, sales of a business depends upon the end user, the customer. So, the growth of a business in turn depends upon customer satisfaction. According to Michael LeBoeuf, “A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all”. And this is true for almost all businesses, across sectors. Hence, Customer Relationship Management lies at the core of all businesses, especially the services sector. Companies, all over the world, big or small, realize the importance of CRM and work in this direction at different levels, as per their individual capacities and requirements.
So, what exactly is Customer Relationship Management?
Customer Relationship Management or CRM means developing and practicing strategies for managing relationships with existing and potential clients. The idea is to achieve customer satisfaction by maintaining high service standards.
And, what is Customer Relationship Management for the Financial Advisory Practice?
Financial Advisory business revolves around customers. Our success has a direct correlation with the happiness quotient of our investors. Hence, the role of customer satisfaction in financial advisory practice is paramount. You have to continuously acquire new clients for the growth of your business as well as you have to look after the needs of your existing clients. The time and efforts that go into wooing a new client is way more than what you would spend in retaining an existing client. So, you cannot to afford to lose your existing clients as the cost of acquiring new ones. Hence it is extremely important for a financial advisor to effectively manage relationships with their existing and potential customers, the idea is to allocate your time between getting new clients on board and keeping the existing ones happy.
This highlights the need to keep in touch. You must meet your clients regularly, discuss the progress of their portfolios, understand their evolving needs, their concerns, and what's really important is address those needs and concerns timely. It is also essential to educate customers by communicating know-how on products, industry updates, etc. from time to time. And most importantly, a financial advisor not just plays a mechanical role, there should be a bond between the two, which should extend beyond business. The bond is built on the core of being a human being, developing an emotional connect with the client which is actualized by small gestures, like wishing him on important events like birthdays, anniversaries, celebrating with him in his happiness, sharing his grief, and the like. The human element, the need to keep in touch with clients has become more compelling with theRise of the Robo Advisors. Human Touch is the most critical edge you enjoy over Robos.
You must also give time for business development, you may have to meet one client a number of times in the initial stages, a lot of time will go in convincing and educating prospective customers about your services and the products you offer.
The above may seem obvious and we have talked about it numerous times, but practically, it's a time consuming process. It may be possible to manage customer relationships when the scale of your business is small, but as you scale up, Customer Relationship Management becomes a colossal task.
So, How do you go about CRM for your business?
So, the answer apparently is as expected, Use Technology. A lot of stuff can be taken care of by technology. There are a lot of redundant tasks, mainly operational in nature, like form filling, collecting cheques, maintaining MIS' etc., which can be shifted to softwares and Apps, while you can concentrate on building and sustaining relationships with your clients and contributing to the business' growth. But when the scale of business is really large, the advisor may find it difficult to manage such large numbers of client relationships personally.
So NJ offers a technological solution in the form of NJ CRM. NJ CRM helps you manage your customer relationship management related activities easily and efficiently. NJ CRM is a tool available on your Partner Desk under Client Services. It offers many exciting features and tools that empowers you to practice time management, lead management, communication management and sales management related work on a single window. It is simple to operate and is designed keeping in mind an advisor's unique requirements. Please do visit your Partner Desk and start using NJ CRM to manage your client relationships and grow your business from today!
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