Posted on: November 13, 2025 17:52
What you think is best may not be what the client wants
As a relationship manager, I tend to want to get the best pricing, best outcome for my clients. However, over the years, I have come to realize that it does not pay to be extremely nice to clients. And that is because ultimately, all clients only look out for themselves.
So I had this client of mine, let's call her Ms L. Ms L for some reason, did not take up any of the solutions that I had proposed to her but we still had a cordial and candid banking relationship for the past 2 years. Whenever she needed help with her banking matters, it was promptly resolved and services rendered were above and beyond.
But a couple of months back, I noticed that she had started putting her money into the bank's gold savings account, and in ever increasing amounts,. to the tune of 85% of her assets with the bank. This naturally raised some alarms in me with regards to asset allocation, and I noticed that since she was in the profit of about 8%, I made a call to her to explain about the recent fall in gold prices and the need to diversify at least partial of her gold holdings.
As the price of gold looked like it was continuing to fall, my client decided to take up my advice and liquidated her gold holdings. But this was after her waiting for a couple more days, to which her 8% profit went down to 0.3%.
Do keep in mind that I do not get revenue from her transactions and her deciding to wait a few more days was her own prerogative.
And as fate would have it, price of gold then proceeded to go up the past few days and lo and behold, I received an email from the bank's contact center that Ms L has requested for a change in her relationship manager, citing a difference in "frequency" and "vibes".
This causes quite a few issues on my end:
1) Bosses will want to know what happened but in the service industry, the client is always right. I can explain everything but it plants a subconscious thought that I am not able to handle certain clients.
2) It just negates the entire past historical servicing and relationship built over several years.
3) Management is more wary about giving new leads.
In reality, it is not about giving or doing what I think is best for clients. Extremely few clients have the insight and wisdom to identify RMs that do the best for clients. Most people just ultimately want the RM to do what the client thinks is best for themselves.
So I had this client of mine, let's call her Ms L. Ms L for some reason, did not take up any of the solutions that I had proposed to her but we still had a cordial and candid banking relationship for the past 2 years. Whenever she needed help with her banking matters, it was promptly resolved and services rendered were above and beyond.
But a couple of months back, I noticed that she had started putting her money into the bank's gold savings account, and in ever increasing amounts,. to the tune of 85% of her assets with the bank. This naturally raised some alarms in me with regards to asset allocation, and I noticed that since she was in the profit of about 8%, I made a call to her to explain about the recent fall in gold prices and the need to diversify at least partial of her gold holdings.
As the price of gold looked like it was continuing to fall, my client decided to take up my advice and liquidated her gold holdings. But this was after her waiting for a couple more days, to which her 8% profit went down to 0.3%.
Do keep in mind that I do not get revenue from her transactions and her deciding to wait a few more days was her own prerogative.
And as fate would have it, price of gold then proceeded to go up the past few days and lo and behold, I received an email from the bank's contact center that Ms L has requested for a change in her relationship manager, citing a difference in "frequency" and "vibes".
This causes quite a few issues on my end:
1) Bosses will want to know what happened but in the service industry, the client is always right. I can explain everything but it plants a subconscious thought that I am not able to handle certain clients.
2) It just negates the entire past historical servicing and relationship built over several years.
3) Management is more wary about giving new leads.
In reality, it is not about giving or doing what I think is best for clients. Extremely few clients have the insight and wisdom to identify RMs that do the best for clients. Most people just ultimately want the RM to do what the client thinks is best for themselves.