Managing client expectations: balancing flexibility and compliance in investment guidelines

Published on August 13, 2024 by Ranjith Poojary and Ashwini Nagaraj

Deciding on and managing realistic expectations are crucial for addressing a client’s concerns about quality, delivery, timelines and project success. It is equally important to balance flexibility and adhere to compliance standards.

Clients have ample choices and can switch easily, looking for the right fit for the service they require. It is easy to acquire new clients but difficult to retain them for long; the only way in which they can be retained is by continuing to ensure they are satisfied, by delivering high-quality services and by being proactive in managing expectations.

Understanding client expectations

Client expectations change from time to time. As a service provider, we need to make sure all these expectations are met on time and as required if we are to satisfy our clients and ensure better referrals and continued work.

Being flexible enough to adapt to client expectations is key to managing them properly and making the client flexible with us. Such mutual support and understanding lead to successful project completion.

We also need to make sure that we have not breached compliance standards while managing client expectations and being flexible: everything should be ethical and transparent, while maintaining confidentiality.

Why this is important

As mentioned earlier, it is easy to acquire new clients by using different marketing strategies but not as easy to retain them for long. Maintaining long-term relationships with clients requires effort in terms of timely delivery, transparent communication and being flexible and open-minded. It is not just about ensuring that a project is profitable but also about keeping client satisfaction high.

Satisfied clients can provide valuable referrals, with a positive impact on a company’s revenue. Client satisfaction also translates into team satisfaction and exceptional work.

How to manage client expectations

• Be honest and transparent. This builds client confidence. Acknowledge failure if something goes wrong and figure out a way to fix it, rather than making it complicated. Research indicates that clients value honest and transparent communication.

• Set clear expectations. Understand expectations, asking questions for clarification, if necessary. Be clear about goals, requirements, milestones and date of project completion, defining a clear and detailed scope of work. Ensure that both parties agree on the terms, timelines and quality standards.

• Ensure timely delivery. Set clear deadlines that are realistic and attainable. It is best to under-promise and over-deliver, as this would delight the client. Adopting best practices in investment compliance helps deliver the work on time, using new tools and technologies that have been developed to streamline the process.

• Provide a personalised service. Providing tailor-made services to meet a client’s unique requirements is key to client satisfaction. In terms of investment compliance, the client would have different requirements, such as pre-trade and post-trade monitoring for different regions. Hence, a clear understanding of regulatory guidelines relating to Asia Pacific/Europe, the Middle East and Africa/North America and interpretation skills would be essential for monitoring and guideline coding.

• Maintaining proper documentation not only helps provide references but also meets audit and regulatory requirements. All communication, including feedback, needs to be documented.

• Improve efficiency. There should always be value in the service provided to a client. Improving efficiency should be a continuous process, in an effort to reduce cost and time for completing a project. In terms of investment compliance, using best practices and tools and automation developed in-house would help achieve such goals.

• Ask for feedback. Feedback helps understand what the client feels about the service and how it could be improved; ask questions, if necessary, to better understand the feedback. Obtaining feedback regularly and adapting quickly increases client satisfaction and helps maintain a healthy relationship. Connecting with the client personally and building rapport would make the process smoother and clearer.

In investment compliance, client expectations have shifted from active risk management to providing practical perspectives on translating requirements in line with operational needs. Being flexible helps manage client expectations effectively.

However, this process is not one-sided; organisations need to manage their expectations as well. Being transparent and honest about their limitations would help them avoid promising services they cannot deliver.

How Acuity Knowledge Partners can help

We are pioneers in investment services offerings. We create tailor-made dynamic functions with a robust, responsive and proficient control framework and process delivery. Our highly experienced tool-agnostic team provides support in investment compliance, trade surveillance and corporate, forensic and crime compliance. These services are supported by our proprietary suite of Business Excellence and Automation Tools (BEAT), which offer domain-specific contextual technology.

Our teams of experts have a unique combination of skillsets. They have extensive experience in order management/compliance systems such as Bloomberg AIM, Ion’s Latent Zero Sentinel, Charles River Database (CRIMS), LDC, ThinkFolio and BlackRock’s Aladdin, BTCA and SMARTS.

Sources:

• Manage Your Clients' Expectations (investopedia.com)

• Managing Client Expectations: 10 Tips for Customer Alignment (clickup.com)

• 15 Strategies To Manage And Meet Your Customers' Growing Expectations (forbes.com)

• 6 real-world tips for managing client expectations | Teamwork.com

---

---