He defines client experience as, “the coordination between multiple members of our team addressing all the different financial and life goals that our client has shared with us.” And that coordination can take the form of using in-house specialists including a tax specialist, estate planning specialist, investment specialist as well as the wealth advisor.

Clients respond to this level of coordination. “When we survey our clients, their response to the team and the coordination, their appreciation for their wealth advisor who seems to know them extremely well, is leading to a very positive outcome.”

Be Brutally Honest

Years ago, I heard a phrase that was described as a key to success. The phrase was, “Under commit and over deliver.” It sounded nice at the time but now sounds manipulative. I think a better phrase is “Set high expectations and exceed them.”

Similarly, Michael said he sees too many advisors who think they’re better than they actually are. He said, “We have to be brutally honest with ourselves and make sure that we can deliver the things that we are suggesting to our clients.” Further, he said, “I like to think that when I sit down with a prospect and tell them what we can do to help them achieve their goals, that we're not only going to be able to deliver on that, but we're actually going to exceed it in the experience they have with our firm.”

For your firm, think about the experience you deliver. Are you setting high expectations and exceeding them? Are you surveying your clients on a regular basis and getting 90 percent+ satisfaction rates or high double-digit Net Promoter Scores? Are you constantly raising the bar on your service levels? If not, why not?

A Separately Branded Digital Advice Service

Michael’s team came up with an innovative way to structure their services to include an option for prospects whose assets are below Truepoint’s minimums.

The firm offer three tiers of service, with a fee schedule that caps out at 80 basis points. Clients with over $3 million fall into the True Wealth category, where the minimum fee is $24,000 a year, and offers breakpoints at 5 and $10 million using a weighted average. Clients under $3 million fall under Truepoint’s Foundational Wealth Service, in which a client works with a wealth advisor who gets input from the firm’s financial specialists, but without the specialist being present at meetings.

Finally, Truepoint created and branded a digital solution on the Betterment Institutional Platform called RhineVest for clients who are just starting to accumulate wealth. There’s no minimum for this digital solution, and clients who also want some financial planning can talk to Truepoint team members for $45 per month.