Delivering quality service

In recent times, we have seen a welcome emphasis on improving the understanding of what financial planners actually do.

The Financial Planning Association’s value of advice campaign is a focal point for the public’s awareness of financial planning, and an emerging message of ‘financial planners do more than give investment advice’ has been seen more widely recently.

Everything that can be done to overcome the misconception that financial planners are no more than product pushers must be encouraged.

However, while all such steps are to be welcomed, a couple of points do arise. One is whether financial planning groups are geared up to be ‘one-stop shops’ capable of meeting the great variety of individual financial needs of every client. Only those that are geared up for this can really satisfy the claim that financial planners offer much more than investment advice.

Similarly, can every planner ever hope to have the in-depth knowledge of the wide range of options and technical skills needed to satisfy the many opportunities that can arise when dealing with a variety of client needs?

We must avoid any suggestion of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach if we are to meet community expectations arising from our own rhetoric. Increasingly, good planners are those that can harness all the skills and knowledge available within their dealership or its professional network, to help their clients.

It is a major challenge for individual planners, as well as dealer groups, to develop the delivery systems and knowledge base that will ensure their clients have access to the totality of knowledge available.

There are numerous areas that add value to our advice, such as superannuation, taxation, clients’ own personal and lifestyle circumstances and, yes, investment itself, which are critical components of the financial planning service.

But as these areas become ever-more complex, it is increasingly difficult for any one planner to possess all the knowledge and skill levels themselves, without being able to access excellent support mechanisms.

Thus the structure and resources of dealer groups become even more important in developing a client offering.

At the same time, we must not lose sight of the various reasons why individuals visit a financial planner.

If people do want investment advice, we must not confuse them by insisting that other services are more important. The result may be that they decide not to visit a planner because they don’t think financial planners provide the service they need.

So while financial planners must move away from the ‘product pusher’ image they have been painted with by detractors, in doing so we shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bath water.

The reality is that most clients still visit financial planners because they need help in avoiding the many investment traps that exist.

Indeed, with the complexities of direct investments, particularly with equity investments, it could be argued that every Australian who has any investment at all needs advice to reduce risk and maximise opportunities.

If they do not seek such help and support as a main offering by financial planners we will be doing ourselves a disservice.

Which takes us back to overall service delivery. If we do position ourselves as offering a wide range of services to satisfy the needs of clients who have investments, are we able to provide the high quality, in-depth levels to satisfy every particular need?

The days are gone when any one adviser can present themselves as an investment expert, family trust expert, estate planning expert, risk management expert, taxation expert, and expert in all the other structures and techniques clients may need to access.

Instead, they must be qualified financial planners, experts at helping clients and able to access a wide range of technical services as needed.

It seems to us at Avenue that there are two key elements in delivery of specialist professional services in the future for both planners and dealer groups. These are their own experience and knowledge in financial planning, and the ability to identify and utilise other expertise when required.

Thus, financial planners must have the confidence that their own broad skills are supported and complemented by other enhanced technical skills that they can access in their dealer group or professional network.

Certainly every financial planner needs to have particular skills, and a broad understanding of opportunities and solutions. But they must also have positive relationships with clients and within the dealer group that enable them to introduce other specialists — both internal and external — to meet the total needs of each client.

For example, not every financial planner can have the required in-depth knowledge of how testamentary or other trusts can be structured to meet the particular needs of a client’s unique family circumstances.

However, every dealer group must be able to satisfy even the most complex estate planning needs of any client and access specialist skills in taxation, trust creation, philanthropy, and all the other elements that come together in estate planning.

So the challenge facing dealer groups is to set up the framework that allows all these skills to be channelled by any individual planner to every client whenever they are needed.

The challenge for the profession is to convince all those that need these skills to contact a planner.

Simon Clifford is a director of Avenue Capital Management , a privately-owned dealer group.