In today’s “crazy sort of market,” where people struggle with surging inflation and increased cost-of-living pressures, it is important for brokers to connect and stay in touch with clients.
Brendan O'Donnell, managing director at Liberty Network Services, said communicating with clients is not just about emailing them or giving them a text message – brokers actually have to interact with them face-to-face or through a phone call.
But just what sort of stuff should brokers communicate with their clients?
“Educating and guiding consumers is really, really important,” O’Donell said. “Be that helping hand. We even know in terms of best interest duty, it talks about education, and education is key to what you do. So, the first thing is really educating your customers as much as you can.”
In educating and guiding clients, O’Donell said patience is very important.
“You might not be able to run a loan for that consumer today,” he said. “It might take you two, three, four, five, six months, but if you help that consumer, guide them along the way, they’ll value that support, education, and guidance, and it’ll stand you in good stead with that customer.”
Another topic that should be on the broker list is debt consolidation.
“We know that many consumers have lots of credit card debt,” O’Donnell said. “In fact, a recent study said that there’s an increase in the use of credit cards, which is not a good thing because people are obviously going to be paying more on interest on that credit card. So, helping your consumers understand that debt consolidation is really important.”
Cash-flow management should also come up in brokers’ chats with their clients.
O’Donnell said brokers should help their clients sort of navigate all their bills and save a bit of money here and there, by consolidating and managing their cash flow.
Last and very importantly is homeownership and mortgage stress.
“We know that there’s a lot of mortgage stress out there,” O’Donnell said. “We also know that the Australians’ great dream of owning a home. The last thing they want to relinquish is their home. And so, how do we help them navigate that environment?
“There’s lots of options that the banks and lenders have to help customers, and brokers can often be that person between the banks and lenders… There's a number of different simple things you could do with the customer that might help them feel more comfortable and relieve their stress.”
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