Client And Shareholder Service

In this complex regulatory environment, it's important to choose a service provider that can grow with your company and provide expert guidance as you need it. They should have a reputation for accuracy and reliability and have disciplined processes in place that protect your company from risk.

You deserve a provider who will respond quickly to your needs and treat your shareholders the way you want them to be treated. A reputation for outstanding service and high satisfaction ratings in independent surveys, such as the Group Five annual benchmark survey, should also be taken into account.

Perhaps most importantly, you should look for a company with proven best practices and an effective way to measure them.

Which best practices lead to great service?

The following list is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather provides some service highlight examples to help you think about best practices to look for in your client and shareholder service provider (e.g. transfer agent, equity compensation service provider, corporate actions, etc.).

Call center service should focus on quality

The purpose of an excellent call center is to create exceptional customer moments.

Call center representatives should be trained to recognize and escalate when a shareholder needs additional assistance with their account or has repeated issues/complaints. Account notes and flags can be used and tracked to ensure all representatives have access to any prior calls or correspondence with your shareholder. Best practices to look out for in your provider’s call center include:

• Exceptional shareholder care starts with excellent training.
• It is preferable that this critical part of the shareholder experience should be hired, trained and retained as in-house talent. This ensures continuity of service for your shareholders through clear expectations and a supportive culture.
• Passionate about service, consistently delivering superior customer care.
• Measures quality: establish clear SLAs and KPIs.
• Takes ownership of the customer experience, regularly exceeding customer expectations.
• Acquires and maintains superior soft skills, such as active listening, matching the pace of the caller, being friendly and courteous.
• Demonstrates a high level of professionalism.

Shareholder calls that require additional attention and research, including escalated calls, should be managed by a call center customer solutions team dedicated to handling the client’s most complex and challenging solutions. They should work directly with shareholders and across departments to offer solutions until each situation is resolved or closed.

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Proactive partnerships with clients

A good transfer agent and/or services provider will facilitate partnerships with clients that are proactive by design. They should engage with their industry to ensure products and services remain ahead of regulatory expectations and best practices. Proactive steps to look for include:

• Brings industry, regulatory and product-based insights through client communications and regular touchpoints with a Relationship Manager.
• Caters Relationship Management teams and a partnership approach to your needs.
• Co-creates a meaningful and actionable partnership strategy with immediate, short, and long-term objectives.
• Develops robust reporting that measures performance KPIs like shareholder satisfaction percentages, call answer rate, volume of calls, turnaround time, etc.

On the ground – service level best practices that work