If you came to our office, you would not be surprised to discover that we are diligently working away on a number of client files. We certainly use a lot of technology but actually find it quite efficient to keep a paper file open for some of the time.
The beauty of the way we do things round here is that any file must be at one of four stages in terms of the way we work with our clients. We have an acronym for it at Informed Choice – we call it EAIR. It stands for Engagement, Advice, Implementation and Review.
We might be in the process of working with you to find out if and how we can help you meet your goals and objectives. You might be going through the process of deciding if we are the right firm of Financial Planners for you. We call this stage Engagement.
The engagement process starts with us finding out about you and you finding out about us. It ends when you sign an engagement letter we send to you, setting out precisely what we are going to do for you and importantly what we will charge you to do it.
Only when we have agreed to our advice service delivery to you do we move on to data collection, data storage and data analysis to produce your bespoke report. This is the Advice stage in our process.
Above everything else, we believe that good quality financial advice is a very valuable thing and much more valuable than the selection of a financial product (although naturally we do that as well).
If we arrange or alter a financial product for you, we refer to it as Implementation. We select the most appropriate plans for you from the whole of the market and make absolutely sure it meets the objectives that we have identified together. Our administration team takes over responsibility for ensuring any plans are set up efficiently and correctly.
The worst investment or pension plan is not the most expensive or poorest performer (although both of those factors can be avoided) but it can be the most suitable and cost effective plan that is never reviewed. The absence of a robust review process can result in a very poor outcome. Our Review process ensures that plans are never left alone to quietly ‘fester’ in the corner.
So if you become a client of Informed Choice, you will know that at any given time your file will be going through the Engagement, Advice, Implementation or Review process.
