How to keep your clients

Australians may be going to financial advisers, but they are not always following their recommendations, according to the results of a survey conducted by ING Australia.

The research, the results of which have been released today, found that only 17 per cent of those canvassed invested all of their total investments in accordance with their financial adviser’s advice.

The survey, conducted for ING by Nielsen, covered 700 consumers and 300 advisers and was conducted through June and July.

And it found that while consumers did not always follow the precise advice provided to them, they nonetheless tended to develop long-term relationships with their advisers.

It found that the top three drivers for continuing to see a particular adviser were that the adviser understood their needs (68 per cent), that they trusted the adviser (67 per cent) and that the adviser listened to them (60 per cent).

Commenting on the survey findings, ING executive director of sales and marketing Dan Powell said that the power of long-term relationships and regulator client contact continued to be the key in increasing the likelihood of an adviser recommendation by the client.

“These results indicate a significant opportunity for those advisers to deliver a targeted and appropriate service to clients,” he said.

The survey also found that the most successful advisers were those that maintained an ongoing relationship with their clients, with 35 per cent of two-year plus clients citing a high likelihood to recommend their adviser, versus 27 per cent for those with a less than two-year relationship and only 12 per cent recommending an adviser if they had not been contacted in the past 12 months.