The past 10 days or so have clearly been turbulent ones for the financial services industry. Indeed, once the dust settled on an historically disastrous week for the markets, the investment banking industry as we know it had vanished, three major insurance companies were owned by the government and investor confidence had been broken seemingly beyond repair. Countless individuals were left jobless with shattered investment portfolios that were once expected to carry them into retirement.

Figuring out how to recover from this mess is the job of the policy wonks in Washington and the executive teams of the industry’s firms. Restoring trust in the markets and company brands for retail financial consumers, however, falls on the shoulders of financial marketers, product managers and corporate communications departments. A swift, convincing response is essential as firms look to preserve their client base and maintain a strong reputation that can help bring in new business.

As our clients and readers know, we are uniquely positioned to see how the industry has responded to this challenge. With accounts at over 100 firms across the financial landscape, we have witnessed the response first hand and have just released a report to all of our clients about how firms have performed. (If you are not a client but are interested in the report, please let us know – there’s no charge for it).

Some highlights from the 101 websites we reviewed include:

  • Forty firms covered by Corporate Insight addressed the financial crisis on their homepage and/or via email. Thus, 60% of the firms said nothing.
  • Emails were sent to clients by eleven firms.
  • Only four percent posted market-related homepage content and sent emails to clients.
  • Letters from upper management were provided by only six firms. 
  • Homepage images or messages focusing on Money Market Funds were posted by five firms.
  • Video messages from the CEO were offered by just three firms.

Sadly, as shown above, the industry has come up short (so far, at least) in restoring trust.

What should firms do? Perhaps the most important thing in a situation like this is to genuinely and proactively connect with your clients. It is surprising, then, that we received only 11 emails or that in this age of multimedia only three firms provided video messages from their CEOs. Given the generally poor reputation that America’s CEOs have at the moment, you’d think they’d be out their driving home a calming message to their customers.

It is also important to make sure that whatever is produced does not look like it was written by the compliance department. While they may be good for covering derrières, lawyers are generally not known for their warm and fuzzy writing. Yesterday, one of our brokers sent us a six page PDF entitled “Why Your Accounts Are Safe.” Not only did it read like something only my attorney could curl up with, but it made no mention of the fact that our assets are soon going to be part of another firm due to a merger. This is a document that could have been written five years ago and it did not do much to engender a feeling of safety.

Some marketers might ask, “Well, my firm is a (mutual fund, bank, annuity) that is not affected by these events so why should I bother?” The reason is your clients may not know you haven’t been affected. All they are hearing from the media is that the entire financial services industry is in shambles. Tellingly, a friend of mine, who is a smart person but does not work in financial services, asked me the other day if he should close his bank account. And the fact is, if you are not in a dangerous spot, you should be singing it from the rooftops!

Our report has many examples of what to do and what not to do (40-pages worth, in fact). We encourage clients to read it in the hope that they can better articulate their message and, as an industry, help restore trust among investors.