During the perilous economic journey we are all experiencing, everyone desires to keep our businesses viable and ready for the future once the “stay-at-home” order is repealed. While in quarantine, we still must listen to the all-important voice of the end customer and for those in the financial services industry, that customer is represented by the numerous households with money invested in the markets - from millionaires to 401(k) participants. These households have all experienced some level of financial angst in recent months. Our goal today is to provide you with some of the key findings from our recently released research, available in our report The Corona Crash, April 2020, What Advisors Should be Saying to Investors Now. 

• More than 60 percent of investors claim to have lost a fair or significant amount of their net worth regardless of wealth level. Financial advisors need to reach out to these investors to assist if possible or at least to discuss any viable changes that may be required. 
• Investors are open to digital communication such as webinars when available. While not all advisory firms have provided these options, more than half of investors aware of these communication modules have participated. 

• Many investors are making portfolio changes and advisors should be aware of investor’s desires, especially if they are purchasing equities. More investors are making changes in April than did so in March. More investors are buying rather than selling. It’s unclear whether they are relying upon or discussing these investments with their advisors. 
• While half of investors indicate their financial advisor has been very proactive during this crisis, 10 percent feel they would be better served by another advisor. Twenty percent of wealthier investors are likely to seek a new advisor in the future.

Most financial advisors and providers are doing a great job of being proactive with their clients during this crisis. Once it is over (and it will be over!), it will be even more important to ensure that clients are satisfied with your performance and to obtain feedback regarding what you need to do to retain their loyalty in the future. Our Spectrem Satisfaction Gauge (SSG) would allow you to obtain customer satisfaction results later this year and to benchmark those results against organizations similar to yourself. If you are interested in discussing this service, please contact me. We would be willing to include the three-part Corona Crash: What Advisors Should be Saying to their Clients Now reports for organizations that sign up for SSG prior to June 30.

Now more than ever, financial advisors and their firms must remain aware of the needs of their clients. Let us know how we can help.