VouchedFor Top Adviser Guide...

In February I was included in the ‘VouchedFor’ Top Adviser guide that featured in The Times. This is a list of financial advisers who have received a significant number of 5* reviews on VouchedFor.

If you don’t know who or what VouchedFor are, they’re an independent website where people go to rate and review financial planners. All of the reviews are based on feedback from actual clients and they are independently verified, which makes appearing on the list a great achievement.

All of my reviews are from my Engage clients and, having become regulated in June 2017, it makes me especially proud that as a team we’ve been able to accumulate enough reviews to make it onto this prestigious list. You’ll now be able to see our ‘top-rated adviser’ logo on my email signature and on our website.

But the reviews are not just useful for our image on social media.

We have started to incorporate asking for reviews on both VouchedFor and Google into our annual review process. This is to enable us to gain more feedback and further insight into where we can improve as well as what we’re doing well.

A good example of this is where one of my clients mentioned in their review that there was some disappointment in us raising our fee after the first year of working together. I am very happy to say that they are still a client and we were able to work through this feedback together. I was candid with this particular client and told them the truth. During our first and second year we did a lot of work on our processes and structure to make sure our fees were fair for everyone. When we set up Engage, we had an idea of the anticipated cost per client but there was an element of guess work. In order to be able to maintain the level of service we strive to achieve we needed to raise our fees. Plus, in 2018 we had the added complexity of new Mifid II & GDPR legislation resulting in significantly increased administrative costs. So, the re-work of our fee structure for all clients across the board in year 2 ensured we could sustain our business!

Whilst not every conversation is an easy one, on this occasion we were able to explain the reasoning and rationale behind the decision. We welcome the opportunity to address any questions or concerns that any clients might have. In this instance the client and I discussed the price rise in detail, and we both came away feeling satisfied with the outcome. 

We always want to have open and honest dialogue with our clients based on their feedback and experiences with us. It’s not just a process for clients to tell us how great we are (though we do like that too😊).  

We have the VouchedFor report available should anyone wish to have the full detail of all of our reviews to date - email us at hello@engagefs.co.uk and we will happily share it.

We look forward to many more reviews to come!