The next instalment of our 'A Day in the Life of' series sees Chris Binks walk us through a typical day as FMB's Client Services Supervisor...
"I set off from Appleby at 8 am and usually arrive at the office around 8:45 am. I make myself a cup of tea and start checking through my emails.
Once all of the team have arrived, we sit down for a chat to discuss what tasks we have on today. This varies from day-to-day from general administrative tasks to processing a new business application, investment surrender or fund switch, preparing a valuation in advance of a client meeting or obtaining information for policies a client has that was not arranged through FMB initially.
Each member of our Client Services Team takes it in turns to be "Queue Master" for a week which ensures that everyone gets an idea of how to prioritise urgent tasks and it also means that there is a point of contact for the Relationship Managers should they have any task queries.
Valuations can sometimes be very time-consuming to prepare, the length of time it takes can vary depending on the complexity of the client's portfolio. If the client holds several older style policies, they are often not accessible online so we would need to make phone calls to the investment providers to obtain the valuation information verbally. Some of these more complex valuations can take a member of the team most of the day. With most standard valuations where the majority of the information is available online, these can take as little as 30 minutes to complete.
Once all the valuation information is up-to-date on the system, we print two copies for the client's file and pass it on to the Relationship Manager. They will liaise with the Financial Planner to produce an agenda before passing the file back to them to study in advance of the client meeting.
After lunch, we have another team chat to discuss the task queue and determine whether any new urgent tasks have come in that need prioritising. Processing any new business applications tends to take precedence followed by valuations and sending off Letters of Authority as they are usually required for client meetings that have already been arranged.
Once the task queue is manageable, we spend some time chasing up any outstanding diary entries usually for outstanding policy information or policy documents from new investments. We then go on to update client factfinds on our back-office system and file thinning which includes scanning all historic plan information.
Our team also provides daily reception cover during breaks and lunches as well as holidays. We use a rota so that reception duties are evenly split among our team.
A day in the Client Services Team is always different and there is always lots to do!"
Chris Binks, Client Services Supervisor