Financial advisors for the most part have bounced back from a year filled with disruptions, as booming financial markets and significant gains in production boosted their overall satisfaction. But advisors working for wirehouse firms are not feeling the love, as more than a third said their firms fell short of expectations during the pandemic, according to the J.D. Power 2021 U.S. Financial Advisor Satisfaction Study, released today.

Thirty-four percent of wirehouse advisors reported reduced levels of support from the home office and 29% cited disruption of business services, the study said. Wirehouse respondents said they experienced these negative effects at about double the rate of non-wirehouse and independent advisors.

Wirehouse advisors also said they had higher levels of difficulty transitioning to remote work, the study said.

“This year has been especially challenging, and this study identifies some firms that clearly did a better job than others in meeting those challenges.” Mike Foy, senior director of wealth and lending intelligence at J.D. Power, said in a statement.

The study rankings showed the firms with the highest overall satisfaction among employee advisors were Edward Jones, with an overall satisfaction score of 890 on a scale of 1000, followed by Raymond James & Associates (864) and Stifel (857). The bottom three were Merrill Lynch (698), UBS (627) and Wells Fargo Advisors (577).

Among independent advisors, Commonwealth took the top spot, with an overall satisfaction score of 936, followed by Raymond James Financial Services (853) and Cambridge (842). The bottom three were Segment Average (798), Cetera (777) and Advisor Group (710).

J.D. Power said dissatisfied advisors were more than three times as likely to switch firms. It found that from 2018 through 2021, 18% of advisors working for firms with the lowest overall advisor satisfaction scores switched firms. “That compares with a switch rate of just 5% among the firms with the highest overall advisor satisfaction scores,” the companys aid.

Additionally, J.D. Power noted that the average annual production of advisors leaving their firms was nearly $800,000, and 63% of investors indicated they would likely follow their advisor if he or she left the firm.

The U.S. Financial Advisor Satisfaction Study included responses from 3,029 employee and independent financial advisors and was conducted from January through April.