Evaluating Client Discovery Interviews at a Financial Advisory Firm

Abstract

Discovering the client agenda involves interviewing clients to assess their interests, issues, concerns, questions, goals, and priorities. This is similar to discovering the patient agenda in medicine. The SLCT (pronounced “select”) process is an evidence-based interview protocol that has been found effective in stimulating patient disclosure in health-care settings. After evaluating discovery practices among six advisors at a registered investment advisor firm before and after training them in the SLCT process, the author based the analysis on observations, notes, transcripts, and survey responses from the interactions of six advisors with 18 simulated and 12 real clients. Observations and survey responses indicated that advisors lacked a common protocol for discovery interviews prior to training. The analysis shows that, even with minimal training, advisors using SLCT achieved an improved rate of insight into client needs. Training in SLCT was associated with increased advisory inquiry, client disclosure, and documentation of the client agenda.