Name the sales habits most likely to lead to a complaint, and the fix for each one.
Most complaints in this industry are not about fraud or obvious wrongdoing. Most come from a gap between what the client thought they bought and what the policy actually says. One client believed a plan covered hospital stays when it covered critical illness. Another thought premiums were fixed when they could be revised. Another expected money back on cancellation and found the surrender value was a fraction of what they had paid.
These gaps are usually created at the point of sale. The representative describes the best case and moves quickly past the rest. They use a term the client misreads. Or the client compares the plan with another product, and the representative lets that comparison hang without correcting it. Lesson 2.3, Clear, relevant and timely information, showed how to close these gaps before the client signs. The focus here is on the habits that open them.
Four habits come up again and again. They are easy to spot in other people and hard to see in yourself, so read each one with your own recent meetings in mind.
The first is selling to a campaign. A firm or product provider runs a contest, a target or an incentive for a product this quarter. Nothing about your clients has changed, but that product starts appearing in more of your recommendations. Clients often sense this even when they cannot name it. The recommendation feels slightly off to them, and if the product later disappoints, that unease is what turns the disappointment into a complaint.
The second is rushing the end of the meeting. The fact-find runs long, the client has to leave, and the disclosure gets compressed into five minutes. The parts skipped when you rush are usually the exclusions, the charges and the early exit terms, which are exactly what complaints are about.
The third is overstating: making promises that cannot be kept. "You'll definitely get this back." "This fund has always done well." "Claims for this are never a problem." Any statement like these can become the sentence a client quotes back to you when something goes wrong.
The fourth is leaving out a conflict. You may be paid more for one product than another, or a recommendation may help you reach a target. The client is entitled to wonder about that. Your firm has rules on how pay is disclosed, and you should follow them. Separately from disclosure, do not let a target decide a recommendation in the first place.
Promising yourself to try harder changes very little in a busy week. What works is a replacement habit, something specific you do instead of the old one.
For campaign selling, check whether the campaign product would have come up for this client if the campaign did not exist. When a first meeting runs long, book a second meeting for disclosure instead of squeezing it into the last few minutes. Where you feel the pull to overstate, describe ranges and conditions: what the outcome could be, and what it depends on. When a client asks how you are paid, answer openly and in line with your firm's process.
Some clients will complain however careful you are, and how you respond matters as much as what happened.
Picture a client who messages you late on a Sunday (an invented example). Her claim for a minor surgery has been turned down because of a waiting period. She says you never mentioned one. She is angry and wants to know what you are going to do about it. Your first instinct may be to reply with the clause number.
Resist that instinct. Telling a client they signed the form, or quoting the clause back, may be accurate, but it resolves nothing. Arguing can turn a complaint about a product into a complaint about you. Do not try to settle it privately either, for example by offering to make up the difference yourself. Firms have a complaints process so that complaints are handled independently, by someone other than the person whose work is being questioned. Independent handling is what the fifth fair dealing outcome expects.
When a complaint comes in, take these four steps:
Listen to the whole complaint without defending yourself. Acknowledge that the client is upset and that you are taking it seriously. Write down what they said, in their words, with the date and time. Pass it to the firm's complaints process, the same day if possible.
For the client with the waiting period, your reply would apologise that this has happened and say you want it looked at properly. It would tell her you have noted what she told you and are passing it to the complaints team today. It would say the team will contact her, and that you will make sure she knows what to expect.
If a client is still unhappy after the firm has handled the complaint, they may be able to take the dispute to FIDReC, the Financial Industry Disputes Resolution Centre. FIDReC offers mediation and adjudication between consumers and financial institutions. Its own website sets out which disputes it can hear, its current limits and its process, so point clients to that website rather than describing the details from memory. The firm's final response to a complaint will normally tell the client about the FIDReC option as well.
Knowing FIDReC exists is also a reminder that any complaint might be read by someone independent, alongside your file. That makes it a fair test of whether your notes would show what you actually said to the client.
You have probably already seen some of these habits in action, whether in your own firm, a previous job or as a customer yourself. In the activity below you name three you have seen in your industry and write the habit you would put in place of each one.
List three sales habits you have seen in your industry that work against the outcomes. Next to each one, write the habit that should replace it.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).