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Blog · Coverage and territory · Wealth managers

Contact recency for wealth management advisers: the silence that comes before an outflow

How a wealth manager measures days since last contact per client and per adviser from the CRM and the book, why the top tier's silence matters most, and how to turn it into a weekly list that reaches the adviser before the client calls to transfer out.

The short answerContact recency is the number of days since an adviser last logged a contact with a client, measured per client against the contact frequency the client's tier requires. Compute it from the CRM contact log joined to the book, roll it up per adviser as the share of clients inside their frequency, and rank the exceptions by assets. A tier-one client past ninety days with no contact is the single most reliable early signal of an outflow.

Wealth firms measure assets and revenue per adviser to the penny. Almost none measure the one thing that predicts where those assets will be next year: whether anyone has spoken to the client. Contact recency is that measure. It is in the CRM already, and this guide shows how to compute it, roll it up and turn it into an adviser's weekly list.

The measure

For each client:

Days since contact = today − date of the last logged contact

Against the client's tier:

In frequency = days since contact ≤ the tier's required interval

For each adviser:

Coverage = clients in frequency ÷ clients in the book

The adviser's number is the coverage. The client list behind it, sorted by assets and days overdue, is what the adviser actually needs.

The rows you need

  • The book: one row per client with adviser, tier, assets under management and revenue. From the book-of-business export.
  • Contact log: one row per contact with client, adviser, date and type. From the CRM.
  • Tier frequencies: the required contact interval per tier. A table with three or four rows.

Client identifiers only. The name column can stay in the CRM.

Building it

  1. Last contact per client. Take the latest logged contact date per client, counting only the contact types the firm counts.
  2. Days overdue. Days since contact minus the tier's interval. Positive means overdue.
  3. Adviser coverage. Clients in frequency over clients in book, per adviser. Roll up to the office and the firm by summing clients, not by averaging percentages.
  4. Assert the book. Assets by adviser must sum to the office, offices to the firm, and the firm to the figure finance reports. A client under two advisers, common after a retirement, breaks it at the office level.

A worked example

One adviser, twelve clients, three tiers. Tier 1 requires contact every 90 days, tier 2 every 180, tier 3 every 365.

Client Tier AUM Days since contact Overdue Note
0412 1 £2.1m 94 4 Review noted a liquidity event
0418 1 £1.6m 31
0425 2 £0.8m 201 21
0431 2 £0.6m 88
0440 3 £0.2m 402 37
…

Coverage: nine of twelve in frequency, 75 percent. The list for the adviser is not "75 percent". It is:

  1. Client 0412, tier one, £2.1m, four days overdue, and the last review mentioned a liquidity event. Call this week.
  2. Client 0425, tier two, three weeks overdue.
  3. Client 0440, tier three, five weeks overdue, small.

Ranked by assets and overdue days, the first line is the one that pays for the whole exercise.

Why the top tier's silence matters most

Outflows are concentrated. In most books, the top ten percent of clients hold half the assets. A tier-one client who has not been contacted for a quarter is not one exception among twelve; it is a material share of the adviser's book with nobody looking at it. The measure should always be ranked by assets, never by days alone, so the list opens with the client whose silence costs the most.

Where it goes wrong

Contact logged against the wrong entity. A call logged against a spouse's record, or a family office's parent entity, leaves the client record silent. Join on the household or entity the firm reports on, and count contacts across it.

Tiers not maintained. A client whose assets doubled two years ago and is still tier three gets an annual call. Recompute tiers from assets on a schedule, and keep the history so the frequency applied is the one that was in force.

Marketing counted as contact. A monthly newsletter marks every client as contacted every month, and the measure goes to 100 percent and means nothing. Count two-way contact.

Leavers' books. When an adviser leaves, their clients' last contact dates freeze. The report should show unassigned clients as their own line, not spread them across the office.

The weekly list

Once the book and the contact log are mapped, the same exports each week produce each adviser's list, ranked, with the reason on each line, and the head of advice sees coverage by adviser and by tier with the trend. Covirage builds this on the exports as they are, with client identifiers only. The wealth managers page describes the setup, and you can upload a sample book and see the roll-up on your rows.

Questions people ask

What contact frequency should each tier have?

It is the firm's decision, not a benchmark. A common shape is quarterly for the top tier, twice a year for the middle, and annually for the rest, with a review meeting counting as contact. The measure only needs the frequencies to be written down so silence can be measured against them.

Does an email count as contact?

Count what the firm counts, and be consistent. Most firms count a meeting or a call as contact and treat a newsletter as marketing. A logged two-way exchange is the safest definition. The point is that the same rule applies to every adviser.

Can this be done without client names?

Yes. The measure needs a client identifier, a tier, an adviser and contact dates. Names stay in the CRM.