Every year, we ask all of our clients to ‘score’ their experiences. We want to know how they find our response times, financial planning, annual reviews, team members and overall journey.
We take this survey to heart because – for us – it’s personal.
This year, we sent out survey links using ‘Smart Survey’. These went via email to all of our email clients (nearly every client has an email address). We received a 47% response rate over the course of June.
Last year, we felt that we asked too many questions. This meant that less clients completed the survey. This year, we trimmed things back a bit; to try and reduce the time involved for each client who was kind enough to complete the questionnaire.
The survey was designed using our ‘quick-fire’ priorities approach. This allows clients to swiftly select the response that best fits their thoughts in relation to a question. We then provided a comments box for every question – to allow our clients (who are a wise old bunch!) to tell us more.
The survey responses are anonymous to allow clients to really say what they think.
Firstly, we asked how our clients had found our service this year with options including ‘Excellent, Good, Acceptable and Poor’. We were very happy to see that 93.62% of respondents selected the highest ‘Excellent’ score – with the rest selecting ‘Good’. This is hugely important to us.
Next, we asked how well the Annual Review satisfies clients requirements. Some 84.78% selected the highest ‘perfect’ score with the rest selecting ‘Good’. We had no ‘Adequate’ or ‘Poor’ ticks which again was so rewarding.
95.74% of clients ticked ‘Excellent’ when it came to the speed of our response in getting back to them – with the rest again selecting ‘Good’. There were no ‘Adequate’ or ‘Poor’ responses.
We asked our usual question ‘How confident do you feel to invest right now’. There were many comments around this, as so many of our clients very kindly went to great lengths to tell us how reassured they were to remain invested because of our regular contact and care. However, we noted our highest ever percentage response stating that they were ‘Nervous’ or ‘Very Nervous’ about investing new money at some 21.74%. It was reassuring to see that the highest percentage were still either confident or neutral – but it is clear to see that Global Politics are certainly affecting sentiment.
Over half our respondents had listened to our Podcast ‘Your Money Talks’. The vast majority loved it and continue to download our quarterly short shows.
Over one third of respondents had tried our annual ‘eMeeting’ and the verdict was that they really loved it too. They liked the amount of questions and the summary report that we then produce. One person still felt that the graphs were too hard to understand – so we are revisiting this format again to see if we can improve it.
Finally, we asked a very different question – ‘Which would you say is most important for Thomas and Thomas – winning more awards, hire more staff or gain more qualifications?’ This truly threw the cat amongst the pigeons! Our clients were so thoughtful with considered responses in the comment boxes. The collective answer was that qualifications were slightly more important – with awards a close second. However, they really wanted both! They were more cautious about extra staff – as they wanted me to get some time off but they also didn’t want our service to become diluted.
This survey (and responses) was probably the most telling that we have ever run. Our clients are clearly delighted with every aspect of the service that we provide and that helps me personally to sleep at night. They also shared considerable collective wisdom in regards to markets and our own future plans.
I am so humbly grateful to every single client that took the few minutes required to answer our survey. This data is incredibly important not just in evidencing our service to our treasured clients – but also in shaping the very service that we provide.
My very best wishes as ever – and if you require our full response document – please just let me know.
Darren
