The Financial Planning Association is among a group of financial companies that are revisiting the question of how advisors can communicate better with clients in a rapidly changing world.
The FPA, along with the Money Quotient Research Consortium (MQRC), a nonprofit research organization, and Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America, announced today that they are renewing research that was conducted 15 years ago that examined communication best practices and how they impact advisors' relationship with clients.
“For financial planners to forge long-standing relationships with clients and earn an increased level of trust, they need to elevate their communications competencies,” FPA CEO Patrick D. Mahoney said in a prepared statement. “I am delighted FPA has the opportunity to work with our partners at Allianz Life to support an important research initiative that will result in an updated, unique dataset that other organizations and we can learn from to better support the planning community.”
The researchers involved in the project, who noted that recent world events such as the Covid-19 pandemic have significantly impacted the way people communicate, are inviting advisors to participate in the study, today through June 15, at the survey website.
The original study, conducted in 2006, surveyed advisors and clients about how they communicated with one another and how that affected their relationships, the FPA said.
The companies identified the following goals for the new study:
• Identify the most critical communication practices that yield trust and commitment in a planner/client relationship.
• Add to our understanding of virtual client meetings and interactions.
• Provide insights on the level of clients’ financial anxiety and its potential impact on multiple aspects of the planner/client relationship.
• Provide insights on training and education opportunities around cultural competence and the impact of cultural competence on trust and commitment within financial planning.
Among the key findings in the 2006 were that advisors need to focus on making recommendations to clients that are understandable, and that planners sometimes undervalue how clients value having a planner who can deal with a client’s strong emotions, the FPA said.
The research will be led by Carol Anderson, president of MQ Research & Education and vice president of Money Quotient Inc.; Deanna L. Sharpe, associate professor in the Personal Financial Planning Department at the University of Missouri; and Megan McCoy, professor of practice and director of the personal financial planning master’s degree program at Kansas State University, the news release said. Anderson and Sharpe were the lead researchers for the 2006 study.
“In a digital age where financial information abounds and is easily found, relationship is a key value-add of financial planning. Clients turn to financial planners for something technology cannot give—an empathetic understanding of what’s most important,” Sharpe said in a prepared statement. “Our prior research helped identify best practices in relationship development and this current project will allow us to further develop an empirical basis for practitioners to stay connected and relevant in the midst of a dynamic and rapidly changing culture.”