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Uber is experiencing a torrent of pressure driven by consumers. Notably, this was caused by continuing service at JFK during the Trump immigration executive order in January and Uber’s CEO berating a driver barely two months later. These incidents required Uber to respond to consumer demands over how they conduct their business. While some of these responses forced Uber to take a political stance, the finer point is that consumers are dictating the terms of how Uber conducts business.
The concept of consumer pressure can be applied outside the political realm to general services that your company provides. For example, do potential clients expect you to have 24/7 support available to acquire their business? Consumer demands force businesses to perform in a specific manner to acquire their business.
Regardless of the DOL fiduciary rule going into effect, clients now expect their advisors to provide them with advice that is compliant with the fiduciary standard. It is as important as ever to stay the course on fiduciary compliance because consumers are still demanding this compliance.
Consumer demands and the DOL fiduciary rule
By now, many within the financial services industry have seen John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight video about the fiduciary standard. The video, which now has over 6 million views, helped inform consumers of financial advice about the DOL fiduciary ruling. With this kind of reach, many people are now more familiar with the idea behind the fiduciary standard.
With the fiduciary standard in the consumer’s mind, the consumer will require any financial advisor to be a fiduciary to win their business. Thus, in order to stay competitive in a large swath of the market, it will be important for advisors to provide fiduciary-level advice to meet their clients’ expectations.
Other financial advisors are even using the fiduciary ruling to differentiate themselves from competition. These advisors are gaining clients by meeting client expectations of being a fiduciary. By responding to consumer demands, these advisors are able to meet consumer expectations of being a fiduciary. Meeting this expectation will provide them with added benefits in acquiring new clients.
At their core, most companies are marketing-oriented. Companies must have their clients and customers at the center of every business decision they make. At Advicent, we have created a culture where everyone understands that they touch the customer. It is a good habit to think about how potential customers and current customers will respond to your business decisions. Every choice you make impacts a customer in some way.
Moving to a fiduciary standard has been a long time coming for the finance industry. While the fiduciary standard may never go into effect, consumers now demand that anyone providing financial advice meets the fiduciary standard. Thus, the fiduciary standard is being implemented through consumer demand rather than fiat regulation. Leverage our knowledge at Advicent to provide fiduciary-level advice. Due to consumer pressure and benefits outside of compliance, Advicent is seeing many customers stay the course on implementing compliance solutions.
Click here to learn more about remaining competitive in the face of shifting regulation.
This article was written by Kyle Johnson, marketing operations specialist at Advicent.
