Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

According to a J.D. Power study, Edward Jones is tops in customer satisfaction for the second year in a row.

BusinessWeek said:

"J.D. Power & Associates' Full-Service Investor Satisfaction Study, which was released on July 10, surveyed 5,064 clients in the U.S. It measures overall customer satisfaction with full-service investors by examining seven factors. They are, in order of importance: competitiveness of portfolio (20%), financial adviser/broker (18%), account set-up/account offerings (17%), commissions and fees (13%), customer service representative (12%), convenience (11%), and account statements (10%). The study examines consumer attitudes, brand image, and experiences with investors and divides them into three groups: high, medium, and low commitment."

Another source, reporting on comments from their local Edward Jones reps said:

"...three Morgan County Edward Jones investment representatives, recently announced that the study showed strong customer service representative performance, convenience, account set-up/offerings, account statements and product and service offerings combined with competitive investment performance drive, in which Edward Jones ranked first, according to a news release from the firm."

It's a good lesson in how to manage our customer relations.

1. Convenience: The holy grail of success in our age is ease-of-use with our customers, which is another way of saying convenience - not matter what the platform or point of contact is.

2. Account set-up/offerings: They were happy with the entry point into the business.

3. Account statements: They were able to measure what they invested.

4. Product and service offerings: They were provided what they looked for, what they preferred.

5. Competitive investment performance drive: Essentially it means they delivered the goods.

Simple and easy, but simple and easy are always the hardest things to manage and deliver.

A list of brokers and how they scored in the study (highest is 1,000).

Edward Jones 808
Raymond James Financial (RJF) 800
A.G. Edwards (AGE) 778
LPL Financial Services 775
Vanguard 775
Merrill Lynch (MER) 768
UBS Financial Services (UBS) 766
Smith Barney (C) 760
Industry Average 758
Wachovia (WB) 750
Ameriprise Financial (AMP) 746
Charles Schwab (SCHW) 735
Fidelity Investments 728