Sigmund Freud once famously asked: “What does a woman want?” Decades later, many financial advisors are still searching for answers.
Numerous studies have highlighted the continued unhappiness of women with the performance of their financial advisors.
Financial advisors are often “intimidating” and “patronizing,” said respondents to a worldwide survey by the Boston Consulting Group in 2009. And almost 80% called for improved service, citing everything from “being talked to down to” to being offered “dumbed down” offerings and explanations.
That is problematic, considering that women now control about half of Canada’s wealth and are poised to inherit trillions of dollars over the next few decades. To improve the quality of your interactions with female clients, consider these tips:
1. Listen
Women fire advisors for many reasons, but it usually boils down to a failure to listen, says Kathleen Burns Kingsbury, principal of KBK Wealth Connection in Boston and author of How To Give Financial Advice To Women: Attracting and Retaining High-Net-Worth Female Clients.
“Many female clients complain that advisors don’t listen and try to sell them products and services before they really get to know them,” she says.
Her advice? Listen carefully, ask open-ended questions, and do your best to put yourself in the client’s shoes.
2. Build relationships
Women are neurologically wired for connection, notes Burns Kingsbury. “They get a biological boost from connecting,” she says. “The pleasure centers in the brain light up when they do.”
Women want to tell their story as part of the financial planning process, Burns Kingsbury says. And they want to know something about the advisor: What is your background? Have you worked with similar clients? What did you do for them?
3. Build trust
Women are slower to trust than men, says Eleanor Blayney, president of Directions for Women, a Virginia firm that trains financial advisors to work with women. “They want to understand context and how it affects those they care about. Unfortunately, financial services is a bottom line-oriented business and many advisors are impatient with delays.”
Be consistently honest and transparent about your products and services, says Burns Kingsbury. “Explain in clear language how your office works and what you can and cannot do for them. Transparency affords your clients the ability to truly know and trust what you are doing with their money on their behalf.”
4. Be patient
Women make decisions differently than men. They have greater access to the areas of the brain that govern emotion and memory as well as judgment. And because they take in more information than men, their decision-making process is slower. Give women the time they need to make decisions and don’t pressure them before they’re ready.
5. Deliver great service
“I often hear complaints from female colleagues that a financial advisor was going to check on something, but then failed to follow up,” says Burns Kingsbury. “For many women, such unreliability is unacceptable.”
If you have difficulty with follow-through, develop a support system for this part of your job, she recommends: “Following up shows you care, that your client is important to you, and that you are working on her behalf, even when she’s not in your office.”
Women have higher expectations than men regarding service quality, adds Rhonda Latreille, president of Age-Friendly Business in Burnaby, B.C. “We’re less likely to forgive poor service than men but more likely to promote those who do it well. If we’re happy with you it can really pay off in terms of referrals to our friends and acquaintances.”