The International Adviser Best Practice Adviser Awards promote and celebrate the hard work, dedication and achievements of advice businesses across the UK, Europe, South Africa, the Middle East and East Asia, writes Mark Sanderson, managing director of Morningstar Wealth.
With the awards’ focus on encouraging firms to incorporate best practice in their business, from client service and investment planning to teamworking and back-office support, this chimes with our commitment at Morningstar Wealth Platform to empower investor success based on great advice. We were delighted to again sponsor the awards, the winners of which were recently revealed for 2022.
I was pleased to learn that across all five regions, ‘Excellence in Investment Planning’ and ‘Excellence in Client Service’ were the standouts in terms of entry numbers. The enthusiasm of advice firms to put themselves forward and the standard of submission in these two key areas bodes well for the future of quality professional advice.
Communication and teamwork are key
Client service relies on good two-way communication. While the pandemic did immeasurable damage in many ways, it also opened up different methods of keeping in touch with clients.
Letting go of the reliance on in-person face-to-face meetings means we’re hearing about clients having more time with their adviser across the year using a hybrid approach of face-to-face meetings, online meetings and calls.
No one would have chosen how this came about but it’s a great example of how change can make better use of everyone’s time, benefitting clients.
Quality client service nearly always involves a team, however there were surprisingly few entries for ‘Best Support Team’ across the regions. It would be good to see that change in future, with greater recognition for all those who play their part in helping clients achieve their goals.
When it comes to investment planning, the entries reflected a roughly 50-50 split between in-house and outsourced service. This fits with the general trend we’re seeing of advice firms increasingly drawing on DFMs to take care of the technical side of investment management, freeing them to concentrate on building and enhancing their client relationships.
Raising the bar of professionalism
It was inspiring to see that the biggest growth category for award submissions in all regions since 2021 was ‘Excellence in Professional Development’. It’s great that so many firms around the world have mechanisms in place to improve recruitment and retention, including investing in supporting colleagues through their professional training and longer-term development.
This is essential in my opinion. Raising the bar of professionalism with advisers and planners is bound to benefit not only clients but the firms themselves and, over time, the whole sector. We certainly need to attract more prospective advisers and planners into the industry if more people with investible assets are to benefit from accessing quality advice.
Another element core to delivering the best experience and outcomes to clients is understanding them and their reality. Diversity and inclusion in businesses can play a big part in this.
Understanding breeds engagement which in turn breeds trust with clients from all sorts of backgrounds, but there were very few entrants in any region – and none at all in some – for ‘Excellence in Diversity’.
It’s a relatively new award and one which has different meaning in different regions. Hopefully next year more firms will be happy to showcase how they’ve captured the spirit of diversity in their business and the benefits.
Continuing to progress good outcomes
One interesting trend across UK firms was not specifically calling out Consumer Duty either as a driver of change or a challenge.
However, with plenty of focus on delivering the best service to clients, it would appear many UK-based advice businesses are on track to comply with the duty when it’s implemented later this year.
While this is a localised regulatory initiative, good client outcomes matter globally of course. We all have a part to play in continually putting end-clients’ interests first, so they have the best chance of achieving the future financial security they seek.
We’re living through a challenging time, with much to test and occupy advice firms. It’s incredibly encouraging to see the increasing priority placed on best practice in among all that, with a rising tide of professional standards. Well done to all firms striving to be the best… for their clients, their team and their profession.
This article was written for International Adviser by Mark Sanderson, managing director of Morningstar Wealth.
