Carl Lamb: Is it necessary to return to old ways and client visits?

The past two months has certainly been a test for everyone and I'm sure I'm not alone in wondering if life will ever return to the old "normal". 

I believe that the professions, including our own financial advice sector, have been luckier than most in the majority of us have been able to carry on providing services to our clients, at least to a certain extent. That extent has very much depended on how effective firms' emergency plans were before the start of the crisis.

The biggest factor in the survival of any advice firm will be their investment in good IT. Thankfully, we've always tried to keep at the cutting edge of technology and that investment has certainly paid off. 

It enabled us to react quickly to the crisis and send everyone home. We're using Microsoft Teams for meetings with colleagues to keep normal dialogues open and our staff are working as usual, logging in remotely from their spare bedrooms, home offices and kitchen tables.

Morale is good, communication between teams has been maintained and staff still feel involved and engaged. We created a "Business as Usual" video for our website and social media, which featured staff members at home and we even had staff members dressing up for "Star Wars Day" on May 4^th.

Technology has been key to maintaining our relationship with clients too. Our switchboard is still manned throughout normal office hours, putting calls through to staff; we've diverted extensions and direct dials through to home phones and mobiles so everyone can still be contacted when needed. 

Our aim is specific: clients should never feel that we're not here for them. That's absolutely critical at a time when market conditions are so uncertain and turbulent. We are committed to keeping lines of communication open, whatever is happening in the marketplace - no hiding under the parapet for us. 

The first couple of weeks after markets started to tumble were busy ones with clients desperately worried about the loss of value they were seeing in their portfolios. We were determined to stem any panic and to make the point that bears are normally closely followed by bulls - that markets will almost certainly recover and knee-jerk reactions are usually a bad idea.

We're still meeting with clients for their reviews, but at arm's length. We're using whatever solution is right for the client - Messenger, WhatsApp, Zoom or Skype will all be possible and it's been a revelation to find out how easily even the older, less tech-savvy generation have adapted to video calling.

Where video calling isn't an option we're doing it the old-fashioned way and picking up the phone. It's the right way to do things for both our advisers and our clients in the current crisis: both can feel safe and we've found that the review process can just as easily happen remotely as face-to-face.

Therein lies our future dilemma: this has all worked so remarkably well that it makes us wonder if we should actually go back to the old ways. Frankly, this way of doing reviews is efficient and practical and ticks a number of boxes both from a business perspective and in terms of the client relationship.

While it's all very lovely to pitch up to the client's house for tea and cake, do we really need to intrude upon their time and personal space with a ceremonial visit? We all make claims about our clients becoming our friends, but is that rose-tinted view a realistic - or even desirable - one for today's advice profession? Are we being vain and self-indulgent to believe that the client is better served by our actual presence rather than a virtual one?

A return to near normal working where we can visit clients in their homes seems still to be a long way off. Almost every client will get some experience of communicating with us remotely and, if we do our job properly, they will see it as a positive experience.

It is incumbent upon those of us who run advice firms to use this time to seriously question whether now is the time for a complete change of the advice model. Let's not waste this opportunity to seriously evaluate how our working practices might become more efficient - and therefore potentially more affordable - to benefit clients in the future.

Carl Lamb is a Chartered financial planner and director at Smith & Pinching

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