Alluring promises may be an effective way for firms to attract top advisors, but the results of the 2009 Dealers’ Report Card reveal that firms’ failure to execute on these vows seems to have a damaging effect on advisors’ satisfaction levels.

The advisors surveyed this year made it clear that delivery on promises is an important expectation, with respondents giving it an average importance score of 9.2. But with an average performance rating of 8.4, firms fell sharply short of these expectations — and those with the lowest scores in this category earned additional votes of disapproval from their advisors.

Mississauga, Ont.-based PFSL Investments Canada Ltd. is the only dealer in this year’s Report Card that managed to outperform the expectations of its advisors in this category, pulling in an exceptional performance score of 9.8. PFSL advisors praise their firm for consistently fulfilling their promises.

“Everything they said on Day 1 is still true,” says a PFSL advisor in Ontario. Adds a colleague in the same province: “They’ve overdelivered. Every year I’ve been here, I’ve been more excited about the future.”

Although Mississauga, Ont.-based Investment Planning Counsel does not have one of the highest ratings in the “delivery on promises” category, there are signs that the firm is making a turnaround. IPC’s rating in the category improved substantially year-over-year, advancing by 0.4 of a point to 8.0.

“Management is approachable,” says an IPC advisor in Ontario. “They said they were advisor-based, with a focus on us as customers — and they have been.”

Adds a colleague in the same province: “The CEO and president walk the walk and talk the talk. [They] tell it like it is.”

Toronto-based DundeeWealth Inc. also saw its score jump by 0.4 of a point, to 8.2 from 7.8 in 2008. The improvement comes as the firm’s management is making a conscious effort to step up communication with advisors and to convey a stable working environment after several acquisitions in recent years.

“We’re very, very active … travelling and meeting with people,” says John Panneton, DundeeWealth’s executive vice president of distribution and investments. “We like people to feel that this is a partnership, as opposed to a structured organization in which everything emanates from the top.”

DundeeWealth advisors have taken notice, it seems. Says an advi-sor in Alberta: “They’re stable and independent, and I’m very satisfied.”

Conversely, a poor rating for delivery on promises appears to be highly correlated with recent changes in firm ownership. Regina-based Partners in Planning Financial Services Ltd. earned the lowest rating in the category, at 7.5. This comes two years after Calgary-based ECI Investments Ltd. , a subsidiary of Calgary-based holding company InterBorder Holdings Ltd., purchased PIP. (See story on page C7.)

“I liked PIP prior to the buyout, and since then I’ve seen some changes I’m not happy with,” says a PIP advisor in Saskatchewan. “I’m not sure about the direction they’re planning on going in since we were bought.”

PIP’s executives admit that the firm has faced a challenging transition since the takeover. But president Dean Lower says PIP has followed through on almost all the promises it has made since the acquisition. One exception is the promise to create an Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada-licensed securities dealer — a goal PIP is still working toward.

“We have delivered on several promises, and we may have lost [some ground] this past year,” Lower says, “but we are moving forward very fast to make up for lost time.”

Suffering a similar fate in the “delivery on promises” category is Markham, Ont.-based Professional Investment Services (Canada) Inc. — another firm with ownership changes in recent years. The firm had a rating of 7.6 in the category.

PIS advisors question a promise by the new owners to help advisors build business through referrals — an area that PIS president and CEO Ken Rousselle considers one of the firm’s key strengths. “Our pitch is that we are a large international company with 12 years’ experience,” he says, “working with advisors and helping them build relationships through a referral model.”

But several PIS advisors say the model is ineffective.

“I don’t agree with their premise of how they want to grow,” says a PIS advisor in Alberta. “Their premise is for reps to partner with accountants and get referrals. It can work as a one-off, but that’s it.”

@page_break@Burlington, Ont.-based Manulife Securities Inc. also ranked at the low end of the spectrum in terms of delivery on promises. Although the firm’s rating edged up by 0.1 of a point to 8.1 from 8.0 in 2008, many of its advi-sors note that the firm’s operations have suffered since its acquisition of Burlington, Ont.-based Berkshire-TWC Financial Group Inc. in 2007.

A Manulife advisor in Ontario says the firm’s growth strategy has hampered its ability to follow through on its original promises: “As companies grow over the years, they change their goals. They were very agent-oriented, and they don’t value their agents anymore.”

Manulife advisors have been particularly unimpressed with the lengthy transition to the Broadridge Dataphile back-office platform following the merger. Although president and CEO Rick Annaert vowed in last year’s Report Card to make the transition as smooth as possible for advisors, some say this hasn’t been the case.

“It isn’t going well,” says a Manulife advisor in Ontario. “It is going [more] slowly than expected and not as smoothly.” IE