| Ethics: Professional Fundamentals | |||
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Diligence Being Attentive Producers owe it to their customers and clients to be diligent on their behalf. Being constantly attentive to them and their situations is critical to an enduring professional relationship. Sticking to the tasks at hand and delivering the goods all the way to the end is key to this important area of diligence. Diligence is to be constant in effort to accomplish something and to be attentive and persistent in doing anything, i.e. like a diligent student. Diligence is to be done or pursued with persevering attention as in a painstaking or diligent search. It is a constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken. It is persistent exertion of body or mind as well as care and caution pertaining or appropriate to a professional. Diligence is similar to being industrious, assiduous, sedulous, occupied, indefatigable, untiring, tireless, and unremitting. In financial planning, diligence involves an agent providing services with great effort and care. The agent must take care to provide timely service that is both accurate and thorough. A diligent practice will make reasonable efforts to respond to client concerns, inquiries, and problems. Not taking action on an issue may significantly harm your client's interests. However, a client need not be harmed by inattention in order for an agent to have breached the duty of diligence. Prompt and Conscientious Diligence pays attention to an agent's obligation to perform services in a prompt and conscientious manner; one that is within the timeline the agent promised and/or that was agreed upon between agent and client at the time they entered into a financial advising situation. Agents serve their clients well by their expertise, guidance, and implementation of financial goal management and attainment process. In thinking about this, you may recall the many times that you have needed, requested, and entered into a business relationship with countless service industry providers from a number of different areas needed in your personal and family life. They ranged from and included lawn services, auto mechanic, plumber, electrician, dentist, doctor, property and casualty agent, real estate broker, dry cleaner, etc., etc, etc. You remember in a highly positive way those who did what they said they would do, did it right the first time, did it in the time frame that they said they would do it, and charged an amount that was fair and reasonable for the service provided. Swift and Complete You remember positively those who communicated quickly and fully when something changed due to what you both did not take into account or that could not be foreseen at the outset that changed the timing, the amount, or the end result. You remember those especially when they made every effort to remedy the new situation as fast as humanly possible. You probably have enthusiastically referred those providers to others without even being asked to by them. You remember and appreciate those who have provided their services to you in a reasonably prompt and thorough manner. I am sure you have had a good number of these positive experiences. On the other hand, I'm sure you have also had a good number of dealings with many providers in these areas where it was entirely the opposite of the first examples outlined. This, more than anything, is your best and most frequent reminder of the principle...Diligence. You want always to be like those providers that allowed you the courtesy of a positive experience when having a service performed for you. You also remember those who missed every area of diligence when going about providing their service to you. They are your constant reminder of just how you do not want to conduct your professional service business and how you do not want to be regarded by those who have used your services. And even more, you do not want others who are not currently your clients to be referred to someone else because of the reverse "un-referrals" from those who had contact with you referred away from you. No one in any of these negative experiences has won anything. Successful referrals are due largely to how the agent organized him or herself and others around them to be able to create positive experiences for a high percentage of their clients. A successful agent/client relationship as well as the successful transactions you, as a consumer, have experienced, are due to being able to take care of many variables behind the scenes. These are essential in being able to create a positive experience time after time. It was not luck. It was not chance. It was not done by 'winging' it. Rather, it required diligence behind the scenes in order to deliver an exceptional service to you in person and it is the same for you to be able to provide an excellent experience to your clients. It required attention to be diligent in planning for the services needed and agreed upon. For you to have a successful experience, it took time, skill, and experience in supervising all the aspects that needed to come together behind the scenes by themselves and by those in their employ. It required them to have a persistent approach from beginning to end and to stay with it for your benefit. It is also essential in earning your trust, your repeat business, and enthusiasm to refer them to others. I know you are seeing yourself in this story. You do the same things behind the scenes so you perform, for your clients, the high level of service, face to face, in order to result in the positive experience you want to deliver and that your clients expect. When you haven't done these things, I'm sure that you were the first to know it and then your clients were quick to remind you, both knowingly to you and probably without telling you. And, the latter is something that can prevent you from performing positively as well as stunting growing in your career. Proportionately, it is not something we want nor something we can afford. |
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Not only are policy forms, clauses, rules and court decisions constantly changing, but forms vary from company to company and state to state. This material is intended as a general guideline and might not apply to a specific situation. The authors, LunchTimeCE, Inc., CEfreedom, and InsuranceEthics101.com, and any organization for whom this course is administered will have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a result of information contained in this course.
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