Over the past couple of hundred years, there have been a number of breakthroughs in communication.

The telegraph ushered in an era of real-time communication. Before that, Americans on the West Coast had to wait weeks to discover who had won the presidential election. Since then, radio, television and fax machines have continued to transform how we communicate with each other.

A more recent addition to the list of communication breakthroughs is e-mail. E-mail has been so thoroughly integrated into the way many of us communicate with friends and business colleagues that it is easy to forget how recently it arrived on the scene. It was only in 1995 and 1996 that e-mail began to become broadly commercialized and widely accepted in day-to-day use.

In fact, recent research asked clients how they would like to receive information. For virtually every aspect of routine communication, e-mail was the medium of choice.

Even older clients have signed on to the e-mail revolution. As recently as three or four years ago, many seniors were holdouts when it came to e-mail. Today, the age segment that is adopting e-mail the fastest is people over 65, as more and more are buying home computers and e-mailing with grandchildren.

Yet, only a minority of advisors have fully embraced the potential of e-mail in communicating with clients and prospects alike. For most advisors, e-mail is still underutilized in day-to-day dealings with our clients.

Let’s start with the basics: the necessary first step is to ensure you have updated e-mail addresses for all your clients and prospects. Even if you have a client’s e-mail address, part of your annual update should include confirming that the e-mail address on file is still the best one at which to contact that client.

A second step is to talk with clients about using e-mail to communicate. Even though the overall acceptance of e-mail is growing, not every client has signed on. Some clients still prefer communicating on even trivial matters by traditional methods — that is, phone and “snail” mail.

If you are committed to providing every client with the highest level of service — and especially having your top clients feel they are getting personalized treatment — you have to be prepared to make exceptions to your generalized approach and adapt how you work to individual clients’ preferences.

So, once you have spoken with clients about their e-mail preferences and ensured you have correct e-mail addresses, the next step is to integrate e-mail into your day-to day approach to communication.

Shifting newsletters to an online format is just one example.

Many advisors use quarterly newsletters to stay top of mind with clients and prospects between phone calls and meetings. Going online with newsletters has a number of advantages. Cost is one, as going online eliminates printing and mailing costs.

Online newsletters can also be more readily tailored to individual client groups. You can have core content that goes to all clients, but then customize the balance of the newsletter to client segments. For example, the version of the newsletter that goes to seniors can have an article on tax-efficient methods to receive income; another version going to those saving for retirement could receive information on changes to RRSP rules; business owners could get an update on the benefits of individual pension plans.

With e-mail, you can also dramatically increase the frequency of communication to clients. Each Monday, one advisor e-mails clients and prospects an article that they may find interesting reading. Sometimes that article is from a source within her firm; on other occasions, she e-mails a newspaper article. One of the big advantages of communicating online is that most publications allow you to forward articles at no or minimal cost.

Another advisor, at the end of each day, forwards interested clients and prospects a short e-mail summary of market developments prepared by his firm. When he meets with clients and prospects, he asks them if they find the daily update of value or whether they would like to be taken off the distribution list. Most ask to continue receiving the e-mails.

There are other ways to incorporate e-mail into the way you do business, both to increase productivity and to send clients and prospects the right signals about your professionalism and organization.

@page_break@Once a meeting has been booked, for example, you can send clients and prospects a follow-up e-mail, outlining what you’ll be talking about. Then send a reminder the day before, confirming the meeting and including another copy of the list of topics you will be discussing.

After the meeting, you can send a quick note, expressing your appreciation to the client or prospect and confirming what will happen as a result. You can even send follow-up e-mails after important phone calls, to say thank you for taking the time to talk and to recap your discussion.

One note of caution: no matter how effectively you use e-mail, there are some instances in which personal contact is critical. Research with clients indicates one topic with which most clients want to deal with you by telephone: when problems arise with their accounts.

And no matter how frequently clients receive e-mails, there is still no substitute for in-depth, face-to-face meetings and periodic phone calls.

At some point, e-mail saturation may reach the level at which clients and prospects no longer assign value to online communication. Until that time, if your goal is to ensure that clients feel they are getting an outstanding level of contact, consider ramping up the use of e-mail to supplement your other communication approaches. IE



Dan Richards is president of Strategic Imperatives Ltd., a Toronto-based consultancy that delivers training to financial advi-sors. He can be reached at richards@getkeepclients.com. For other columns in this series, go to www.investmentexecutive.com.