Listening and responding to comments from clients can sound like a piece of well-worn wisdom to cynical ears, but as far as Barclays Stockbrokers is concerned, such attention to client wishes is vital, never more so than in the current economic climate.

The continuing evolution of the online trading space has made my job as head of client contact at
Barclays Stockbrokers challenging and rewarding in equal measure.  I have two primary focuses: delivering the best possible client experience for our 400,000 self-directed investors, and listening and responding to customers to improve our products, services and investment tools.

Over the last 18 months, the needs and expectations of investors have grown sharply. While we have continued to offer a strong research proposition, competitive pricing and market-leading investment tools, our clients are more interested than ever in the quality of the service that we deliver. In the last year we have stepped up our client feedback process to hear more about the experiences of our client base.

By increasing the number of feedback channels on offer: online, telephone, e-surveys and face-to-face meetings, we are gathering useful insight every day to help us strengthen our existing proposition and service levels.  For example, during the last year of unprecedented market volatility, we have seen our clients taking advantage of these market movements with a 62 per cent year-on-year increase in deal volumes and a 20 per cent increase in calls from clients.

Additional investment

Recognising that our typical client wants to make his/her own investment decisions, we know that it is the basics that we need to get right, for this reason we have committed to a significant investment programme during 2010.

One of the key requirements for investors today is for them to be empowered to manage their accounts online, how and when they want.  We have the opportunity to learn from the “straight to web companies” (such as Amazon, eBay and the like) that revolutionised the online client experience in the last decade. Our own research shows that 60 per cent of those clients who opened an account with us during the most volatile market conditions were new to investing, attracted in many cases by what they perceived as ‘bargain’ stocks. This group of novice investors showed a strong interest in educational tools and content and so we are also investing heavily in this area.

Power to the investor

When it comes to the products and services investors are looking for it very much depends on their investment approach, degree of experience and attitude to risk. Proprietary research in 2008 identified a new breed of investor – the ‘instividual’ – individual investors who are looking for quasi-institutional tools and research, traditionally only available to investment professionals.  In response to this trend, investors are increasingly seeking the most up-to-date tools, research and thought-provoking comment available.  Through being armed with more information, investors then have the insight they need to make informed, and hopefully profitable, investment decisions.

With this increasing sophistication amongst investors, we have seen more specialist asset classes becoming increasingly mainstream.  In particular there has been an increase in investors trading in contracts for difference and financial spread trading, and while these instruments have become ever more popular, the most marked growth has been in margin forex trading. This trend looks set to continue as investors seek volatile, liquid markets, which offer performance uncorrelated to traditional equity markets. Forex is the largest financial market in the world with over $3 trillion transacted each day. This huge market is increasingly accessible to the retail investor.

Despite the rollercoaster ride of 2009, recent research on our own client base revealed that our investors are becoming more confident in their outlook for the FTSE in 2010. The research found almost half of our investors (44 per cent) plan a bullish approach in 2010, believing that the recent FTSE rally will continue, compared to only 34 per cent in November 2009. This suggests a return in confidence which is supported by an increase in trading volumes.

Keep listening

Regardless of how the markets perform in 2010, the important thing for me is that brokers such as ourselves keep listening. There are unique product, service and research needs for all our clients, from the novice investor through to the day trader, and the only way to meet these is to listen to the collective customer voice. Then, most importantly, act to meet these needs. I expect we will be doing a lot of both in 2010.