Why affluent clients underuse advisor services and how to close the gap

Although financial advisors offer a range of financial services, affluent clients are not utilizing many of them and are instead focusing on just a few key services.  The challenge for advisors, according to the latest Cerulli Edge—U.S. Retail Investor Edition, is to bring these services to the forefront of clients' attention, thereby bridging the gap between their offerings and investor uptake.

Advisors across all channels offer an average of 6.1 of the 11 financial planning services that Cerulli presented to the respondents who took part in the study. Predictably, retirement income and accumulation planning are the two most popular services offered. This is in keeping with clients’ traditional key financial goal of prioritizing a secure retirement, Cerulli said.

Retirement income and accumulation planning are the two most common financial planning services, particularly given that approaching retirement is a significant incentive for beginning an advisory relationship, John McKenna, research analyst at Cerulli, explained. “A majority also assist with insurance services, college education financing, cash management, and high-net-worth services like estate, charitable, and tax planning services. Elder care and business planning are also offered, but less frequently,” he added.

Services used

However, clients tend to use fewer services with their advisors than what advisors themselves offer, McKenna said.  “We have found that adequate retirement savings and a comfortable life in retirement are routinely listed as top long-term priorities by retail investors, and a main reason for seeking out a financial advisor for those approaching retirement,” he added.

Other services are not as frequently used, though estate planning is fairly common with the wealthiest households, particularly when it comes to inheritance, he added.

Why clients are not using more services

So, what may be the reasons why clients are not using more of the services they are being offered by their advisors? For services like elder care or insurance, clients may not typically associate these with their advisory relationship or see them as financial matters per se, McKenna explained. These would thus be handled with other firms or on their own.

It may also be the case that they are receiving more services than they are listing, like tax planning, but as part of overall investment or retirement planning and are thus not as apparent to the client as it might be to the advisor, he added.

Leveraging the services offered

While it may seem that advisors offer more services than clients demand, such diversity can be leveraged as a competitive advantage in advisor-client relationships, Cerulli said.

“It is very possible that advisors already offer these services within client portfolios as a core offering, but that they are not effectively being communicated to the client,” said McKenna. “As our past research has shown, satisfied clients are the most willing to say the value of the advice they receive from their advisor is worth the expense, but competitive positioning relies on knowing that their advisor is doing more than just focusing on returns and collecting fees.”

This requires advisors to proactively communicate with clients and understand their goals within the financial relationship, McKenna added. In-depth discovery meetings can help determine a client's complete financial picture, as well as where and how they manage non-investable assets.

Making clients more aware of services 

There are a few steps advisors can take to make sure that their clients are aware of more of the services they are offered.  As McKenna pointed out, “Proactive communication with clients regarding the services they are providing is crucial, as well as framing the services around clients' investing goals and priorities. This would help to emphasize the services that advisors are already providing for clients that clients may not be aware of. “

“For more tertiary services like elder care or insurance, recommending in-house or trusted third-party services can help build greater client trust in their financial advisor, deepening the client relationship for years, if not decades to come,” McKenna added.

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