Stop Thanking Your Clients and Start Expressing Gratitude-Janus Henderson Labs
With the holidays nearly upon us, you may be thinking about how to thank clients for their business through usual tactics, each one receiving the same gift basket. However, our research shows a personalized approach can make a big difference. Did you know financial advisors who take a systematic approach to expressing gratitude manage an average of $30 million more than those who use an ad hoc approach? We surveyed more than 300 financial advisors and verified that gratitude matters.
While thanking clients may seem obvious, the Janus Henderson Labs Professional Development team sought objective evidence to prove that not all gratitude is the same. For instance, one advisor had a long-term client whose wife had been recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Rather than just send her a get-well card, the advisor knew she was a teacher, and had a better idea. He had her entire class sign a pair of pink boxing gloves to inspire her throughout her ultimately successful battle. She’s kept the gloves ever since, and the advisor continues to enjoy a close relationship with the family. Systematic gratitude is not about how much you spend, it’s about connecting with clients in a way that truly reflects your role as a trusted source of support and advice during good times and bad.
Developing a systematic approach to gratitude is just one element of Labs’ The Art of WOW program. A WOW experience exceeds client expectations and the notion that “satisfactory” is good enough in every aspect of their practice. Here are three steps to begin systematically expressing gratitude to your clients:
1. Gather
Expressing gratitude that goes beyond client expectations starts by gathering all the information you can about your best clients. No piece is too obscure, because you never know what you can use to WOW them later.
2. Record
Next, you have to record all the information you gather, because you never know when you can use it. You’ll also need to be able to readily access it, so a good Customer/Client Relationship Management System (CRM) can help here.
3. Leverage
Finally, you need to constantly be ready to leverage that information. Part of this process may be brainstorming with your team to come up with ideas that would be impactful.
How well do you gather information about your clients? What are you doing to get to know them better, and are you documenting? What are you doing to show you care about them as individuals in a personalized way, and has this been operationalized within your business? If you’re not confident, we can help get you started.
Need ideas for expressing gratitude?
Visit WOW.janushenderson.com, our proprietary tool to help you source hundreds of personalized ideas for clients categorized by occasions, interests and price range.