Serve your clients better with this new proposition
Harshendu Bindal, President, Franklin Templeton Investments
7th December 2015
In a nutshell
Franklin Templeton has launched First Serve - a bouquet of services designed to enable distributors to simplify operations and serve clients better. Harshendu takes us through the contours of phase 1 of First Serve, and gives us a sneak preview of what's coming next on First Serve. Building a long term business says Harshendu, is not just about sales - its equally about good service. And your efforts to provide good service to your clients, can be greatly boosted when you get high quality service from your AMC partners - that's exactly what Team FT aims to do with First Serve.
Friends,
I am very happy to connect with our distribution partners on Wealth Forum, to share with you the contours of an exciting new initiative that we have launched, and which we will continually enhance through 2016.
First Serve
As you are aware, Franklin Templeton has always been sharply focused on building a long term, sustainable business. When we talk about building a long term business, one needs to focus equally on sales as well as service. Look at examples in our day to day lives. We buy a product the first time because it fulfills a need but what makes you go back to buying it again is not just the performance of the product but also the after sales service that the company offers. For e.g. when it comes to buying a new car, besides the performance of the car we are also concerned about the service delivery standards of the manufacturer post purchase. The same is true in the asset management business. Performance is important but good service is equally important for the client to come back to you again. Also lets keep in mind that in our industry performance can sometimes be volatile and there are too many external factors attached to it but "Good Service" is in your control and one can offer it at high levels of consistency.
"Good service" is the core proposition that led us to recently launch "First Serve" - a bouquet of initiatives that have been designed keeping in mind the SERVICE needs of our distribution partners FIRST!!!.Over the next 12 months and even beyond you will see several new ideas presented to you which I am sure will add value to your own business as well as help you service your client's better.
First Serve aims at two outcomes:
(1) helping distributors simplify their day to day business processes, and
(2) helping them serve their clients efficiently.
For example, understanding their book of business with FT, deeper insights to help discover business opportunities, solving client queries, ability to simplify the client on boarding process, better capabilities using digital. There are many initiatives that we have planned covering different aspects of the day to day business requirements.
Under "First Serve", the first initiative that we have launched is a completely revised "Brokerage Statement". The brokerage statement is a very important document but over the years has also become extremely complex. Our attempt through the revised brokerage statement has been two fold - Simplify the representation of the brokerage accrued & Provide important updates/insights on different aspects of the distributors business book with Franklin Templeton.Over time we have been closely tracking the feedback provided by our distributors and sales team and this in conjunction with the ever increasing need for intelligent data to make business decisions has been the key driver for this new and improved Brokerage Statement.
In my mind, if I were to pick the top 2 to 3 changes that will add most value to our distributors they would be:
Breakup of Commission - as Accrued and Released
Attrition Analysis - Will include year on year redemption trend for 5 years from purchase showing balance units at the end of the stated period.
Potential for cross sell - To begin with we have identified your 'lumpsum only' folios wherein you may like to explore the potential to start a SIP.
Through this revised brokerage statement, we intend to help distributors utilize our data capabilities in managing their book of business with us.
Know more about First Serve - check out this video
We are now on the NSE platform, which has been a key request from many distributors. You will see in the coming months, our Distributor Initiated Transactions capabilities on First Serve. There is, as I mentioned, a lot in the pipeline for 2016 on enhancing First Serve. As you focus on building scale in 2016 and beyond, we will focus on enhancing our service to you, through First Serve, to provide wings to your growth ambitions, in the years ahead.
I look forward to you actively exploring the new features of First Serve, and to hearing from you on how we can keep enhancing First Serve over time, to make it a true long term business builder for you.
CEO Speak
