Ensuring a client sees their own objectives and priorities reflected in their suitability report is a concept we talk about a lot internally and with our firms.
Here, we’re exploring 3 ways to deliver personalisation, and the difference it makes for a client to feel truly understood.
The advice is varied – here’s what the regulators say.
FOS: The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), via their principal ombudsman Richard Thompson, have reiterated that IFAs need to make their suitability reports as tailored and personalised to the client as possible. He said that “using the client’s own words in documentation was the “gold standard” when it came to best practice”.
PFS: The Personal Finance Society (PFS), in their report writing guide, says that you should only use relevant client words and therefore not all should be included.
FCA: The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has stayed decidedly tight-lipped about it all, which really helps.
Trying to interpret all of the conflicting information from all of the different sources can be a minefield, but we push hard for personalised, relevant objectives and these can make all the difference to a suitability report and client trust.
We value personalised objectives because using the client’s own words does really help to demonstrate an understanding of their needs, detail their personal objectives, grab their attention, ensure better engagement with the document - plus it meets the consumer understanding piece of the consumer duty.
How can we incorporate the client’s own thoughts, feelings and references to create a compliant, informative and bespoke suitability report?
We encourage planners to use specific words from the client and link that to the advice.
A good example would be something like when a client says “I just want to be able to finish work and spend more time with the grandkids” and we link that to “We ran cashflow exercises which show that if you enter drawdown now, and take £15,000 a year (which covers your outgoings) you can retire now while your grandchildren are still pre-school age and this therefore meets your objective’.
It works to use actual quotes in the report as the client can then recognise how the advice and recommendations link and really bring it to life for them.
Giving relatable examples is better than just saying “you wanted to consider taking money from your pension in order to sustain your lifestyle”. Many clients are put off and disengaged by jargon.
With regards to sentiments or body language, this is helpful to record in a meeting note rather than in a report.
For example if a client nods their head, I wouldn’t write in a report ‘you nodded your head to show you understood this’ but would write in the meeting notes that throughout the discussions, Mrs Smith showed assent by nodding her head and I regularly checked she was understanding the advice and she confirmed both verbally and with a nod of the head.
It's worth noting that with the advancement of AI note taking that while its use can add a level of efficiency, these notes will not pick up on subtleties such as emotion and body language so is still not in a position to be used fully without overview.
Please remember to check and make edits and additions to the notes, to ensure they are complete and accurate and fully reflect not only the client’s words, but their sentiments too.
Overall, it’s worth remembering that the regulator and ombudsman look at the whole report including the wider file. But for clients, who may only see the report itself, it’s important for that document to be relatable and understood.
If you have any questions about suitability reports, or need support with perfecting reports for your own firm, drop us a line – our friendly, expert team are ready to help.
Jo is chief operations officer at Verve with a background in paraplanning and unwavering dedication to incredible service, client focus and building a team set up to thrive.
