When it comes to meeting advisors’ expectations, firms across all channels of the financial services industry are doing a great job. They are delivering on the things that advisors value most: ethics, firm’s stability and freedom to make objective product choices.

But despite these successes — in which advisors’ give the categories high importance scores and their firms high performance ratings — there are a number of categories that seem to be slipping through the cracks, showing significant gaps between the importance advisors attach to the categories and how their firms deliver on them.

Transition support is one category that advisors rate high in importance but give their firm’s performance much lower scores. A firm’s delivery on promises made to advisors is another, and back-office and administrative support is a chronic underperformer.

All 1,930 advisors surveyed in the 47 firms rated their firms’ transition support a 9.0 in importance but only 7.8 in performance — a significant 1.2-point gap. And at a time when the firms’ main source of new advisors is recruiting from competing firms, you would expect firms to enhance the services advisors look for when changing firms. Advisors, especially those sought-after recruits who have established books and loyal clients, worry not only about transferring their accounts but also about their clients seeing a smooth transition.

“For an experienced broker like myself who’s been in the business 25 years, you would think you would know what you need to do,” says an advisor in Ontario with Montreal-based MacDougall MacDougall & MacTier Inc. about the process of moving firms. “But you don’t, really. I have only done it twice in 25 years. It would be great if there was some sort of program, such as a manual or a guide to moving your book.”

A smooth transition for clients is not the only thing advisors are looking for when they change firms. Advisors discuss “SWAT” teams that come in to move offices in a weekend. And interest-free loans, interim base-pay salaries, technology/systems training and out-of-pocket expenses are all on advisors’ wish lists.

So, while firms may feel they have strong programs in place, advisors may not be seeing the overall affects. Vancouver-based Odlum Brown Ltd., for example, doesn’t have anything set in stone when it comes to transition support. Incoming advisors have their needs assessed individually and the support is adjusted accordingly. The firm thinks this is the way to go.

“We treat our advisors just like our clients,” says Doris Gnandt, vice president and director of sales services for Odlum Brown. “We would prefer to have tailor-made solutions based on the individual’s need.”

But advisors disagree that this is the best way to offer transition support at a regional independent firm. “There needs to be more support and mentorship,” says an Odlum Brown advisor in British Columbia. “I had to teach myself everything.”

Ratings at Toronto-based BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. held steady in this year’s Brokerage Report Card, but the firm’s advisors gave transition support significantly lower ratings compared with 2007.

During the past two years, however, Nesbitt Burns has been enhancing the program. So, complaints from advisors about mediocre support that varied from branch to branch with low cash payments and a lack of organization could reflect the experiences of advisors who moved over before Nesbitt instituted its enhancements. Advisors who haven’t moved recently may not know of the improvements, accounting for the declining score .

Today, Nesbitt offers individualized training that includes information on all products, platforms and technology, and has set up a SWAT team that works over the weekend the advisor is moving his or her accounts to the firm. Nesbitt also covers out-of-pocket expenses that occur during such a move.

“We have worked hard to improve the process for transition and to make things a lot smoother for our new advisors,” says Richard Mills, executive vice president, managing director and national sales manager of Nesbitt Burns’ private client division. “We want to make the whole process as seamless as possible.”

Unfortunately for some firms, however, first impressions are everything. And advisors generally score their firm based on their own experiences. Toronto-based Desjardins Financial Security Investments Inc. and Vancouver-based Leede Financial Markets Inc. are other dealers that are being scored on programs that have since been upgraded.

@page_break@For instance, a DFS advisor in Quebec who rated his firm’s transition support a 5.0 admits: “I moved to the firm eight years ago. The support has improved since.”

Adds a Leede advisor in B.C.: “It might be better now, but I didn’t get the support I would probably get today.”

Transition support isn’t the only area in which there’s a gap between the importance advisors attach to the category and their firm’s ability to deliver. Ironically, advisors say their firms just aren’t delivering on promises made to them. This isn’t the first time, either. Advisors spoke up last year to express their concerns that their firms were not following through.

Overall, advisors rated the promises category a 9.3 in importance but only an 8.5 in performance, which indicates that advisors are tired of hearing empty promises of great things to come — but that never actually arrive.

“They tell you what you want to hear to get you in the door,” says a CIBC Wood Gundy advisor in Ontario.

Adds a 3Macs advisor in Quebec: “Sometimes, there’s a lack of will to deliver because people are not willing to spend the money.”

Advisors say firms make promises covering just about anything — especially when advisors first join the firm. But years after the fact, advisors have not forgotten the empty promises that, some advisors say, have cost them clients.

“It was a noisy nightmare, enough of one that I would not have moved,” says a Wood Gundy advisor in Ontario. “If I could, I would rank it below zero. There was no support whatsoever, people filled out the paperwork wrong and the support people were not qualified. I spent more time correcting their mistakes than talking to my clients. In the end, I lost a couple of them.”

Advisors say there is a whole lot of talk, but no action. Promises of higher commission rates, lower quotas, decreasing desk fees, prospective clients and enhanced technology never seem to arrive.

“They don’t deliver,” says an advisor in Ontario with Mississauga, Ont.-based Investment Planning Counsel. “[The firm] has an ‘I overpromise and underdeliver’ motto. It has a very poor track record in this area. If IPC promises something, it either never comes or it’s completely different from what was described.”

Not delivering what was promised is also the theme when advisors discuss back-office and administrative support. Of all the firms surveyed for this year’s four Report Cards, only two — Toronto-based GMP Private Client LP and Mississauga-based IDC Financial Inc. — outperformed their advisors’ expectations when it came to back-office and administrative support.

Overall, advisors placed the category in the top 10 list of what they value most, with an importance rating of 8.9 but a performance rating of 7.9, which is a full point below advisors’ expectations. Advisors complain of understaffed offices, poor communication and limited access to technology systems.

Calgary-based Portfolio Strategies Corp. had one of the lower scores in the category in the Dealers’ Report Card at 7.3 — 1.3 points below its advisors’ importance rating of 8.6. Ken Parker, Portfolio Strategies’ vice president of finance and compliance, says the firm focuses on providing a full back-office system that advi-sors need to run their business, but doesn’t force any additional systems or packages on its advisors.

“In our business model, we are looking at entrepreneurs who provide a lot of their own technology solutions,” says Parker. “We don’t demand that everyone use the same one because one advisor may have a different idea of what they need from the next guy.”

Nor does Portfolio Strategies want to charge outrageous back-office and technology fees — say, $300 or more for software that advisors might not use. And for a firm with 300 reps that works off an independent model, Parker says, the system makes sense for everyone involved. He promises, however, to keep the dialogue with advisors ongoing, to ensure their needs are heard — and met. IE