It has been an all hands-on-deck, collaborative process with our compliance, IT support and administration teaming up with the frontline financial partners to help deliver these expanded services.
What feedback have you been getting from your clients in response to your calls, emails, and notes?
We have taken an active role in understanding new government legislation and helping our clients’ businesses stay afloat, so there has certainly been an appreciation for the information we have disseminated. But, because these are mostly small businesses, the impact they have endured and our ability to assist them is magnified. As such, the feedback has been extremely positive.
Most of the recipients of the handwritten notes responded with a thank you and commented that the gesture reinforced our relationship.
In what ways have you utilized your vendor network to adapt to the changes posed by COVID-19?
We sought and received vendor support for certain cost reductions that impacted clients directly. We also asked for and received added support from a number of vendors, such as training assistance on how to better use our technology products, enhancing our employees work experiences, and new approaches and strategies on marketing our services.
Have you been able to find ways to turn vendors and centers-of-influence into extended business partners so you can strategically and collectively work together in engaging clients?
We were in the middle of our annual employee review at the onset of the pandemic. We reached out to our payroll/HR partner to see if we could access solutions we had not used before from their technology suite. This led to them giving us access to a program that we can use for not only gathering employee feedback but also engaging with and gathering information from our clients.
We collaborated with other professionals in our community in providing pro-bono information on the government business assistance programs to a wider group than just our clients, which has led to new business and ongoing opportunities.
Do you have any recommendations for best practices to other wealth managers and boutique asset managers in dealing with a crisis like this?
Being an active resource for clients is probably the number one recommendation. There has been a lot of information that has come out over the last two months, i.e. new regulations, legislation, loans, emergency funding, etc. Instead of waiting for clients to contact us with questions, we’ve been proactive in identifying and anticipating what our clients will need and have either published that information on our website, hosted online seminars or contacted them directly with the information. We are constantly looking for ways to create value for our clients, and being an active resource is a great way to do just that.
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