Reference no: EM133027233

How Far Should Tom Go to Keep His Client Happy?

Tom is a sales consultant in the wealth management group at a well-established financial services firm. He manages the financial portfolios of many high-income professionals and also has several institutions as clients. The institutions include a few colleges, hospitals, and nonprofit agencies. These institutions purchase some of their investments through Tom's firm.

Tom is an average performer as a sales consultant, which translates into an income in the top 2 percent of wage earners. He is satisfied with the natHow Far Should Tom Go to Keep His Client Happy?

Tom is a sales consultant in the wealth management group at a well-established financial services firm. He manages the financial portfolios of many high-income professionals and also has several institutions as clients. The institutions include a few colleges, hospitals, and nonprofit agencies. These institutions purchase some of their investments through Tom's firm.

Tom is an average performer as a sales consultant, which translates into an income in the top 2 percent of wage earners. He is satisfied with the nature of his work as well as his income. At the moment, one of Tom's biggest challenges is to decide how much time to invest in managing one client, a large hospital. Deborah, the hospital's pension fund manager, never seems to be quite satisfied. She sends Tom an e-mail almost every day and telephones him almost every week with a question about how well or how poorly the investments placed through his firm are doing. (Tom's firm, like other financial services firms, places very limited information in e-mail messages.)

ure of his work as well as his income. At the moment, one of Tom's biggest challenges is to decide how much time to invest in managing one client, a large hospital. Deborah, the hospital's pension fund manager, never seems to be quite satisfied. She sends Tom an e-mail almost every day and telephones him almost every week with a question about how well or how poorly the investments placed through his firm are doing. (Tom's firm, like other financial services firms, places very limited information in e-mail messages.)

Tom explained to his manager the challenges he was facing with Deborah in these words: "We both agree that keeping this hospital account is important. But how high-maintenance can a client get before we set a limit to how much service we can provide? When the few mutual funds we have invested in for the hospital head down in value at the same time, she wants a fifteen-minute phone call to reassure her that the funds will rebound."

"When Deborah decides that the hospital should invest more money in one of our funds, she almost insists that I take her to lunch. The problem is that these lunches wind up taking about two-and-one-half hours out of my day, travel and time in the restaurant included. Another problem is that Deborah insists on so much documentation about her investments through us. She could really find some of this documentation on financial websites on her own."

Tom said, "I have only given her the smallest hint so far. I said that our firm valued her account, and we will do what we can to satisfy her and the hospital, but that sometimes I need a little more time to get back to her."

Questions

• To what extent is Tom neglecting the idea that client's needs come first and that his goal is to please the client?
• Should Tom be direct with Deborah and tell her that she is consuming too much time for the amount of business the hospital is giving his firm?
• What advice might you offer Tom to maintain a good relationship with Deborah without the relationship being too disruptive to his own work schedule?