When describing the relationship between lovers and their meddlesome acquaintances, Adam Phillips, an English essayist and psychotherapist, wrote: “Two’s company, three’s a couple.” The phrase might just as well describe the delicate triangle formed by the planner, his client and the firm.

“Client service” is a somewhat subjective, catch-all term that describes how well planners think their firms help them manage their clients’ accounts. It can include account statements, the firm’s Web site and online tools, educational seminars and anything to do with account management.

But as one rep with Investment Planning Counsel of Canada put it this year, for a firm to score well in this category, the client comes first, the planner comes second and the firm comes last. Like the help from well-meaning friends and parents in matters of the heart, a firm’s assistance with the client is appreciated, even needed sometimes, but often it just gets in the way.

“I don’t want my dealer in my client’s face,” says one Manitoba advisor with IQON Financial Inc., a top-five finisher, which scores a 7.7 for client service (up 0.2 of a point from its score last year). “I want to manage the client relationship. My dealer is supposed to give me the tools and products to do that. That fits with what IQON says it wants to do.”

Money Concepts (Canada) Ltd. of Toronto also sees its score jump, to 6.8 from 6.2 last year. But an Ontario planner there is not one of the happy ones: “I don’t want [the firm] talking to my clients.”

It’s a tough category to master. Clients and reps will always think a firm can improve on client service. But the consequences of getting things wrong — even the basics — can be disastrous.

Ask W.H. Stuart and Associates, whose reps knocked the firm to a last-place finish in all but one category. They ranked client service the worst of all companies, at 3.5. “If the firm makes a mistake or needs to change something in the account, often it’s done without telling the client,” says one Ontario rep. “The firm is also slow on paying trail commissions.”

At Montreal-based Laurentian Financial Services, which scored a 6.6., a rep, also based in Ontario says, “I wish they would keep me more informed with what they are sending my clients.”

Each of the top five firms in this year’s survey showed an improvement over last year in how their advisors ranked client service. But it appears all the firms are getting the message: the average ranking for client service from all planners was up, albeit slightly, to 7.1 from 6.8 last year.

“I don’t think it surprises me,” says Greg Gray, president and CEO of Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont.-based Manulife Securities International Ltd. “At the end of the day, I think firms that don’t do better on the service side aren’t going to be around very long. Over the past few years, [the bar] has been raised. The expectations of the consumer have changed. If the industry doesn’t get it together and provide the type of information and transactions the client wants, the client will go where it’s easy to do business.”

Biggest jump

Manulife posted the biggest one-year
improvement in the client service category with its score of 7.7, up from 6.3 last year.
“Our plans revolve around the strategy to make it easier for planners and clients to work with us,” Gray says of the improvement. “That’s how we know. We do surveys with advisors and consumers.”

PFSL Investment Canada Ltd. finished first in the category with a rating of 8.9, up half a percentage point from last year, when it also won the category. One rep from the Prairies marked his firm high in this category because it managed to find the right balance. “We get freedom, but support if we need it. We do what’s right for the client,” he says.

Perhaps the highest praise possible in this category goes to Radville, Sask.-based TWC Financial Corp., which finished a close second with an 8.5. “My clients think of me as TWC Financial,” says an Edmonton-based planner.

Tim Calibaba, president and CEO of TWC, attributes the firm’s high score partly to the experience of his chief technology officer.
“What we’ve always tried to do is listen to what the advisors want, and if it makes sense, then we try to provide them with it,” he says.