Few websites provide reviews of advisors but that could soon change with the SEC revising some of its rules. Here’s how to best deal with such reviews.
TripAdvisor helps travelers find hotels, Yelp helps diners find restaurants, and Angie’s List helps people find household workers, but few websites provide reviews of financial advisors. With the SEC revising its rules on the matter, advisors can expect to see a growing number of reviews across a variety of established apps and start-ups. Handling these reviews could become an increasingly important step in the operation of a financial advisory business.
Let’s take a look at some places online reviews can be found, best practices for cultivating reviews, and the SEC regulations surrounding the entire process. (For related reading, see: The Coming Fiduciary Rule: Advisor and Client Impact.)
Finding Online Advisor Reviews
There are a few different places where consumers can find online reviews of financial advisors, including popular online review apps like Yelp and niche financial apps like WalletHub.
NerdWallet is one of the most popular websites that enables financial advisors to answer questions from visitors. Based on the quality of these answers, the financial advisors are rated and organized for visitors looking for options. This is a great way to build trust within a niche financial community that could become a source of client leads.
Another popular review site for financial advisors is WalletHub, which was launched by Evolution Finance in February 2012. The website provides consumers with reviews of many financial products and services ranging from credit cards to banking services. This is a rapidly growing source of financial advisor reviews that’s starting to rank in search engines.
The problem with many such sources is that there aren’t a lot of reviews. Restaurants may serve hundreds of guests each day that could leave a review, but a typical financial advisor may only have 100 clients at a time and — until now — couldn’t solicit reviews. Also, many online review websites generate the majority of their reviews from a small number of active users or those that have bad experiences and want to vent. (For related reading, see: Advisor Tips on How to Talk to Clients.)
Read more: Tips on How Advisors Should Handle Online Reviews | Investopedia http://www.investopedia.com/articles/financial-advisors/032816/tips-how-advisors-should-handle-online-reviews.asp#ixzz44DE5pzTm
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