Oligino said advisors adhere to their pricing structure because they are not assessing it on a regular basis. “The typical thing we hear is that they do fear client attrition, even though our research shows that’s not happening. It’s a bit of a myth,” she said.

Another reason advisors don't change is that a 1% asset-based fee is easy to communicate, she said.

“Change is difficult. A lot of people resist it and if they are comfortable enough, they will just kind of continue on their way,” Oligino said.

An advisor might consider having an asset-based pricing model with a minimum fee to ensure adequate compensation when there's a market downturn, she said. “It’s just there to protect on the downside in times when revenue generation might be more challenging,” she said.

Advisos need to know their cost for serving each client when considering a fee change, she said. Advisors, for example, could bucket their clients into categories depending on how complex their demands are, and figure out the average costs and profit margin for clients in each group, she said.

Each group should be expected to generate a certain amount of revenue in order to recoup cost and remain a profitable company, she said.

“If there is one group of clients that you are losing money on, that would probably be the first group [where] you may need to look at implementing a price change," Oligino said, adding that another option is to just change fees for new clients.

Oligino said advisors should give their clients advanced notice of any fee changes. “You may need to give people time and you are going to need time to get those communications out and make sure everybody is on board,” she said.

“You have to be able to say ‘this is fair because we are delivering this value to you in these ways and we hope that you acknowledge and feel that it’s a fair value as well and the compensation for the service we are delivering,” she added.

She stressed that everyone at the firm has to be given talking points about the change and be disciplined about it “because if ... people start granting fee waivers all over the place, you are not going realize the benefits that you had projected in doing this."