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marco, 23 March 2010
Singapore , Bedok 32°

Compliancy or just treating your clients well...?

Have you been trying to do some new investments lately…? I did…., depending on where and what, you can be confronted with numerous papers to be signed off. Because of regulation…they say it’s for your own protection…!! But I didn’t even read the papers…, my advisor had them pre-filled and the only thing I needed to do is sign (about a dozen times) at the marked areas. I understand it has to do with my risk appetite. Well….. I had a healthy appetite but after having signed all these papers I needed a drink…

It’s understandable that action needed to be taken by regulators around the world. Not an easy task now to find balance between procedures and customer satisfaction after the miss selling that took place in the past. Or should I also mention the miss buying that took place in the past…. Many consumers didn’t want to hear about risks as well and only believed in a golden future.

But going back to basis; isn’t the goal of every good brand to “treat their customers fairly”. Don’t they all want to build long term relationships with their clients and cross sell products? Don’t they all want to get so many referrals from their customers that they can save up on marketing costs? I bet you all answer the above questions with “yes”… funny enough a lot of sales staff is still being rewarded on short term sales and there are often no incentives to build long term relationships. So is it now all because of these sales people….? Well… I don’t think so…, it’s the companies setting the bonus structures and putting the pressure on short term sales destroying some of the long term sales opportunities that there are.

Having a good brand towards your customers cannot be done if you don’t have a good brand towards your employees. You can have manuals for everything, but the only thing that will really make a difference is the behavior of your employees. If your people feel proud of the brand they are working for they will take ownership of the reputation and will behave in a way that can never be reached with regulation and will create a win-win for the company and the client. So instead of recruiting people by offering extra money see what else is important for them and see how your company can offer that. I strongly believe that people who come for money also leave for money. That belief was one of the success factors in my previous company Talent&Pro.

So if the company wants to do the right thing and the people that where attracted also want to do the right thing what can still go wrong in the sales process? For some companies it actually might be all there is to it to become a success. When talking about financial products it’s another ball-game though… Sure there are consumers that are maybe better informed than their advisor on certain financial aspects, but the majority of consumers are not really interested in all these financial products as I explained in my previous article “Who WANTS a financial product…?”. These non-interested buyers (the majority of consumers..) needs to be given relevant information so they actually understand the product that they are buying, why they are buying, if they can really afford it and what the risks are.

Regulators around the globe are also seeing this and are now trying to change buying behavior from consumers by providing extra information, education and tools. Luckily nowadays there is also fantastic technology available to make calculations and graphs interactive and fun to play with. It’s not just providing the information, it’s about providing the information in a way that it will create the interest of the client and make the client understand before buying. Understanding creates trust and with a 67% under-insurance for protection requirement in Singapore (according to 2007 research of the Life Insurance Association) trust is needed to bridge that gap!

Marco Hoekstra (1970) represents FIGLO in the Asia Pacific region and is based in Singapore. Marco is born in The Netherlands. His father is Dutch, his mother Indonesian and his wife Filipino. In 2006 Marco moved to Shanghai to setup the Asian office for his previous company, moved to Manila in 2008 and from 2009 Marco is based in Singapore. Marco holds a post bachelor degree in Financial Planning and has over 15 years experience in Financial Services.
W www.figlo.com
M Marco@figlo.com

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