By Jacob Rouser

Wealth management is an incredibly personal business. From helping someone coordinate the purchase of their first home to facilitating their estate plan, advisors typically stand at several milestones in a client’s life. Unlike many businesses, when it comes to an advisor transitioning to a new firm, clients often choose to go with them. It’s usually more about the name on the door than on the outside of the building. 

But even so, it’s not a sure thing that an advisor’s clients will stick with them during the move from one firm to another. In fact, some studies have shown that advisors lose as much as 19% of their total client assets when transitioning to a new firm.

There are important considerations in this transition to make sure the process is legally and financially smooth and retain as many clients as possible as you turn the corner. 

Here are a few considerations to keep in mind about client retention as you transition or assist advisors with moving to your platform. 

Keeping Communication Open

The old saying goes that people won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. That phrase seems tailor-made for wealth management. 

Any advisor can present a stack of facts and figures, but the advisors who win most with investors are the ones who can explain how and why their transition to a new firm will help to keep clients’ needs out front. 

Whether you’re directly connecting with clients, or providing support for advisors who will, keep the following things in mind. 

Broker Protocol 

The Broker Protocol is an important agreement between firms that protects you from legal action. It was put into place in the early 2000s because firms kept getting into legal deadlocks when an advisor left and their clients followed. 

The protocol states that an advisor may take only a small amount of information about a client with them when they leave: 

—Names

—Addresses

—Phone Numbers

—Email Addresses

—Account Titles Of Clients They Serviced At The [Former] Firm

Using this information, the departing advisor may contact the client and ask to continue their business relationship. If the client agrees, then great. But the advisor may not use any other client information (such as copies of account numbers or account statements, etc.).

Knowing and abiding by the details of the Broker Protocol helps keep you out of court and helps you to put your clients’ needs first.

How to Talk to Clients About a Firm Transition

As we all know, you can never predict the variables in a client conversation – especially one involving transition and finance. 

Laying out a template for conversations ahead of time and thinking through questions before they’re asked can be a great way to rehearse the details. 

Here are some starter questions to prep yourself, or your advisors, for how to have productive conversations with now-former clients and convince them to become clients again.

Why are you leaving the firm? 

How will you answer this question if it comes up? The answer that drives most advisor transitions (the ability to create greater financial value) certainly won’t satisfy any clients. 

Think through the answer that would mean the most to your clients—you want to put their needs first, and this transition will help you get that done. 

Why is it important that you work with them? Why should they remain as your client? 

Think this through as well—what if you were in their shoes? You’ve journeyed with them as their advisor and helped protect and grow their wealth. They know you and trust you, and that’s not something easily or quickly found again. 

Still, now is not the time to stop providing value. If anything, you have to showcase how you’ll provide them with even more benefits through your new firm. This is a disruptive moment in your client’s life, and they need to know that any uncertainty is worth it. 

What’s the process like? 

Walk your clients through the process—from paperwork to welcome letters. Let them know when and how to move their accounts. Talk them through how long it will take, and assure them you’ll take all of the friction out of the process you can. 

What’s next? 

Finally, explain how they can look forward to working with you in the future. If there are changes in fees, hours, contact information or location, your clients will need to know. 

Cover these smaller details upfront as one more way to let clients know you’ve thought of everything, and give them additional confidence that sticking with you is the best choice.

Leveraging Technology 

Technology helps with advisor-client retention by simplifying the transition process.

The Skience Advisor Transitions Platform offers you a fully digital solution for repapering your clients. The less time you and your team spend doing data entry or managing paperwork in the process, the more time you spend on what’s most important: Deepening long-standing client relationships and forging new ones.

The pandemic and resulting quarantine caused a renaissance in remote work, making Zoom meetings and digital relationships the new normal. Clients and prospects are more comfortable with life online and expect their wealth management experience to be intuitive and efficient. Skience gives you the tools to thrive in this paradigm shift. 

The Support You Need to Succeed

When you need to know that you’re doing the most to keep clients with their advisor, it helps to have a technology partner who provides a comprehensive insight into the entire transition process.

Skience gives you tools to follow the customer journey from start to finish. Track who has received, opened, and interacted with an advisor’s announcement email. You’ll immediately know who has filled out transfer paperwork and who might need support in the process. Finally, you’ll know who’s completed the transition and who you need to follow up with for more conversations

Schedule a demo of the Skience technology platform today to see how the Advisor Transitions platform can support your advisors in keeping more clients on board during a move to your firm.