6
For Advisor Use Only
March/April
2014
Editorial
and their staff, yielding an average of 180 pieces of
feedback every month. An internal tracking system
ensures that your comments are assigned to the
appropriate person, who then follows up with you
to close the loop—regardless of whether the answer
is a thank-you or a more involved process or
technological change.
3.
Compliance visits.
These visits, understandably,
can be a little daunting. But our compliance advisors
really are on your side and want to make policies and
procedures as easy to comply with as possible. What
you might not know is that the notes from each
Compliance visit circulate to about 250 people in
the home office. One key number that everyone
looks at is the 1 to 100 rating each branch gives
Commonwealth. It lets us know whether there are
issues and problems beyond the Compliance realm
that we need to address.
4.
Schmoozing at conferences.
More than 850 advisors
were in attendance at our National Conference in
November 2013. From the hallways between breakout
sessions to lunchtime roundtables to social events,
we had ample opportunity to hear what is going well
for you and what we can do to make things better.
Perhaps more important, our conferences give us
time to get to know you as people, and over time,
true friendships evolve.
5.
Indispensability focus groups.
Over the past
decade, we have conducted a focus group with about
12 to 18 randomly selected advisors at most of our
conferences. What we want to learn from these
efforts is relatively simple:
•
The challenges you face in your own firm
•
Things Commonwealth should start or stop doing
•
Your perception of Commonwealth’s service
level and technology offering
We even have a secret ballot for participants to share
whether they think service is getting better, worse, or
staying the same.
6.
Commonwealth Advisory Council.
The focus
groups tell us a lot, but they are brief and broadly
focused. So in 2013, we launched our first
Commonwealth Advisory Council. This group
participates in two meetings per year to delve more
deeply into specific topics like service, the priority
of projects in Commonwealth’s technology pipeline,
and trends in the independent channel, including
the retirement drain and succession planning. Each
year, we will invite new participants to join us, so we
continue to receive fresh perspectives from our advisors.
Proactive Outreach
Because communication is a two-way street, several years
ago, we started reaching out to each Commonwealth branch
office directly, instead of waiting for you to contact us. In
2011 and 2012, we wanted to make sure you were leveraging
all the services and resources on Commonwealth’s platform.
Last year, our focus was on your business—specifically,
your business model, team structure, efficiency, growth
and marketing strategies, risk and succession planning,
and overall evolution from practice to business.
In 2014, we’ll be gauging your passion for revenue growth.
We’re curious about how interested you are in growing
your business, your satisfaction with your recent growth,
your growth strategy, niches you are targeting, and your
awareness about tools available to support your efforts. As
part of this process, we’ll be introducing production groups
advisors may participate in, along with increasing the
number of third-party sponsored workshops around the
country to address growth opportunities. And, yes—as
Although it may seem like Commonwealth
is fanatical about evaluating our service,
we know that even small decreases in
the field’s cumulative rating deserve
analysis and action.
