How to Improve Your Inquiry

During our visits of 20 of the most important private banks in Europe we learned a lot about the customer interface and inquiry of private banks. Our recommendations for clients and banks are based on the experiences in our interactions.
 

Recommendations for clients:

• Evaluate your potential bank from the first minute on. The way how your requests are handled, the inquiry is performed and your needs are incorporated in a proposal will tell you a lot about the way an ongoing relationship would work: Either find a personalised offer or a cookie-cutter  “One Size Fits All” proposal.
• Take your time and ask questions. Do not hesitate to ask your adviser anything that is unclear in your conversations and proposal. Be it jargon, reasoning, allocations, fees. Challenge your adviser and follow-up until you have a satisfying answer.
• Push for a complete proposal after first meeting. It should be no problem for an adviser to write and mail you a full and personalised proposal after one meeting. Do not go for a second meeting before having a written proposal on your desk. Including a written offer for the costs.

Recommendations for banks:

• Listen, listen, listen! Banks asking the right questions and carefully listen to the client will have a true “kick start”. They do not only get all input needed to develop and proposed a personalised proposal, but also gain a lot of goodwill by the client. Standard presentations are exchangeable. Two-way communication is not.
• Structure the inquiry. The weakest point in the entire customer interface was the inquiry. With rather small measures like an interview guideline or questionnaire a lot could be improved: Advisers can make sure they cover all relevant fields and also get “hidden” information from the clients. Banks can also make sure they get comparable information on potential clients - regardless of the advisers who talked to them - and in order to offer a tailored proposal.
• Give a short, precise and complete proposal. As a “must-have” for the proposal we suggest: Outline, summary of goals and needs of the client, main guidelines for portfolio management and asset allocation,  a detailed asset mix, performance numbers of mandates and relevant contact persons. This should be possible on 15 pages. Everything else can go – if required at all – in an appendix.
• Have a user-friendly online presence.  For the new generation of clients the bank’s website will be the first contact. Banks do not need fancy flash graphics. Rather an easy to navigate site, focussed information and most important precise contact information and a working contact form. Banks should also have the site available in the languages the targeted clients speak and understand.

• Client Inquiry and Proposal Need Structure and Focus
• Insufficient Client Focus – A Survey of European Private Banks