Mutual fund firms frequently encourage advisors to segment their clients into groups based on assets,  and personalities. This technique serves as a first step to helping advisors find the right approach to handling investor types, as well as a reminder for advisors to spend the most time working with their top clients. While client segmentation is a sound back-office method, it isn’t very often that firms develop interactive tools to walk advisors through the process.

Oppenheimer broke the mold with their recent launch of a tool entitled Understanding Your Clients, this user-friendly tool can be found on the firm’s new advisor-only sitelet The Art of the Client Review. This attractive and colorful tool first has advisors choose from one of two investor types — Retired or Non-Retired — before displaying questions in three categories — Emotions, Flexibility, and Risk Tolerance. Consisting mostly of yes/no questions, the tool functions as a sort of flow-chart, leading advisors through a quick set of questions that eventually lead to a color-coded number (1-8) that represents the client type. Advisors can click on each number to read more about the investor type, such as their investment knowledge level and general emotional state (ie, they feel anxious and helpless). A few tips on how advisors can handle these types of investors are available as well, including important items to discuss during meetings or the best way to empathize with each type of client.

While this tool certainly isn’t the most advanced in the industry — the results only lead to brief ideas about the client and how to handle them — Understanding Your Clients is a great way for advisors to quickly determine a general approach (and segmenting) strategy when preparing for their client reviews.