Client Service: What New Business Prospects Want to Know

Client service can drive the profitability of an investment organization, making the good times better and dampening the effects of underperformance or organizational instability. We offer the client service questions below as food for thought and to help prepare for your next final presentation:

1. What competitive advantages do you offer as a client service provider?
    
2. Describe your organization’s approach to investment review presentations. How do you make them interesting and a valuable use of our time?
    
3. Who would be our primary contact? Explain this person’s role and qualifications. Tell us about our access to others in the organization.
    
4. You say that your organization is committed to client service. Why are we not being introduced to the person who would be our relationship manager at this meeting?
    
5. How do you handle the account inception process?
    
6. Describe the content and timing of your standard reporting capabilities. We require a number of customized reports. Explain your capabilities to provide them.
    
7. One of your toughest competitors for this mandate offers online account access. Is online access available from your organization? When will it be available?
    
8. Do you routinely provide information on your website that we might find useful?
    
9. How do you monitor and ensure that your organization will comply with our investment guidelines?
    
10. Describe your policy, management process and reporting capabilities for:
    • Soft dollars
    • Proxy voting
    • Directed brokerage
    • Social investing
11. Consider a current client with characteristics similar to ours and detail their service experience with your organization over the past year.
     
12. What are your client service goals? How does your organization objectively monitor success in achieving these goals? What new goals have you set recently to achieve improvements in client service?