Every financial advice firm accepts a certain amount of chasing as normal.
Advisers chase clients for documents. Administrators chase providers for information. Paraplanners chase advisers for answers. Clients chase the firm for progress. Managers chase everyone because they need to understand what is happening across the business.
One reminder becomes an email. The email becomes a Teams message. The message leads to a conversation, followed by another reminder a few days later.
Individually, none of these interactions appears especially costly. Most take only a few minutes. Taken together, however, they can consume a surprising amount of the working week.
More importantly, the visible time spent writing and answering messages is only part of the cost. Chasing interrupts concentrated work, duplicates effort, obscures accountability and makes it harder for clients to feel confident about what is happening.
The real problem is rarely that people are not communicating enough. It is that they have to ask for information which should already be visible.
Why chasing becomes part of the working day
Nobody begins the day hoping to send twelve reminder emails.
People chase because they are uncertain. They do not know whether an action has been completed, who is responsible for it, when it is expected or what is preventing the case from moving forward.
A typical question might sound simple:
“Do you know what is happening with the Smith pension switch?”
To answer it, somebody may need to check the back-office system, search their inbox, review a provider portal, read case notes and ask a colleague whether they received the missing information.
The final reply might be one sentence:
“We are still waiting for the provider to send the transfer value.”
Yet producing that sentence may have involved several systems and two or three members of staff.
This is how chasing becomes embedded in a firm’s culture. The organisation develops a network of informal conversations to compensate for information that is incomplete, inconsistent or difficult to find.
Staff often become very good at operating within this system. They remember which cases need attention, maintain their own spreadsheets, keep flagged emails and know which colleague is likely to have the answer.
That resourcefulness keeps work moving, but it can also conceal the underlying weakness. A process which depends on memory and personal knowledge may appear to work until the volume increases, somebody is absent or several urgent cases arrive at once.
The five hidden costs of chasing
1. It interrupts work that requires concentration
Much of the work carried out in an advice firm requires sustained attention. Paraplanners need time to analyse information and prepare recommendations. Advisers need to review suitability, consider risk and prepare for client meetings. Administrators need to process detailed information accurately.
A message asking for an update may take only a minute to answer, but the disruption does not always end when the reply is sent. The recipient must remember where they were, reopen the relevant information and rebuild their concentration.
Microsoft’s 2023 Work Trend Index reported that 68% of surveyed employees said they did not have enough uninterrupted focus time during the working day. The research was not specific to financial advice, but the underlying issue is highly relevant to firms whose staff divide their time between detailed casework and constant communication.
The cost is therefore not simply the two minutes spent responding. It includes the loss of momentum before and after the interruption.
2. It creates duplicate work
Poor visibility can result in several people pursuing the same answer.
An adviser asks the paraplanner for an update. The administrator separately contacts the provider. The client calls reception. The operations manager raises the case in a meeting.
Four conversations have taken place, but the case itself may not have progressed.
Duplication becomes especially common when updates are stored in personal inboxes or private notes. One employee knows that the provider was contacted yesterday, while another sends the same request again because the action is not visible to them.
This is frustrating for staff and can create a disjointed experience for clients, providers and professional connections.
3. It turns experienced people into human reporting systems
In many firms, one or two people become the source of operational truth.
They know which cases are urgent, which provider has been slow, which adviser still needs to approve a recommendation and which client is about to call.
This knowledge makes them invaluable, but it also makes them a bottleneck.
Colleagues interrupt them for updates. Managers rely on them to prepare reports. Cases become harder to manage when they are away. Time that could be spent resolving problems is instead used explaining the position to other people.
A strong operations manager should improve the system, manage capacity and identify risks. They should not have to act as a search engine for every live case.
4. It weakens the client experience
Clients cannot see the work taking place behind the scenes.
They do not see the administrator contacting a provider, the paraplanner reviewing policy information or the adviser checking a recommendation. They experience the process largely through the communications they receive.
When there is silence, clients may assume that nothing is happening. That assumption may be unfair, but it is understandable.
A delayed provider response may be outside the firm’s control. Keeping the client informed is not. A brief proactive update can reassure them that the case remains active, explain what is outstanding and set a realistic expectation for the next contact.
This is also consistent with the direction of the FCA’s Consumer Duty. The Duty expects firms to provide support that meets customers’ needs and to communicate information at the right time in a way customers can understand. It does not dictate a particular schedule for routine case updates, but clear and timely communication is an important part of delivering good customer outcomes.
5. It damages morale
Few people enter financial advice because they want to spend their careers sending reminders and searching for updates.
Advisers want to advise. Paraplanners want to produce high-quality work. Administrators want to make cases progress. Operations managers want to build a reliable service.
When a large part of the day is spent chasing other people, staff can feel busy without feeling productive. They finish the day having answered dozens of messages but with less meaningful work completed than they intended.
Over time, this creates frustration. The most capable employees often absorb more interruptions because colleagues trust them to find an answer. Their competence is rewarded with an increasing share of the organisation’s uncertainty.
The problem is not communication
Good advice firms communicate frequently.
They speak to clients, collaborate on recommendations, raise concerns and keep one another informed. Removing communication would not improve the service.
The objective is to reduce communication whose only purpose is discovering basic operational information.
There is an important difference between:
- discussing how to resolve a difficult case; and
- asking whether anybody knows what is happening with it.
The first conversation applies judgement. The second compensates for missing visibility.
When people can already see the current status, owner, outstanding action and expected timescale, their conversations become more useful. Instead of asking where the case is, they can decide what should happen next.
What better operational visibility looks like
Better visibility does not necessarily require a large transformation project. It begins with agreeing what information people need and recording it consistently.
At a minimum, anybody reviewing a live case should be able to identify:
- the current stage of the case;
- the person responsible for its next action;
- what information or approval is outstanding;
- the date of the most recent meaningful activity;
- the expected next step;
- whether the case is progressing within the agreed timescale; and
- when the client was last updated.
If this information exists only in someone’s memory, it is not operational visibility. If it is spread across emails, handwritten notes and separate spreadsheets, it may technically exist but still be difficult to use.
Visibility means that the relevant information is current, consistent and available to the people who need it without requiring a conversation first.
Five practical ways to reduce unnecessary chasing
1. Give every case a clear owner
Several people may contribute to a case, but responsibility for its progression should be clear.
Ownership does not mean completing every action personally. It means knowing the current position, ensuring that the next step is assigned and intervening when the case stops moving.
When ownership is shared vaguely across a team, everyone may assume that somebody else is monitoring progress. Chasing then becomes the mechanism through which the firm repeatedly rediscovers responsibility.
2. Use statuses that explain what is happening
A status such as In progress offers very little information.
A case could remain “in progress” while waiting for a client, provider, adviser, paraplanner or compliance review. Each situation requires a different response.
More descriptive statuses might include:
- Awaiting client information
- Awaiting provider information
- Ready for paraplanning
- Recommendation in progress
- Awaiting adviser review
- Awaiting client authority
- Implementation in progress
The exact wording matters less than consistency. Everyone should understand what each status means, who normally owns the next action and when the case should be reviewed.
3. Record the next action, not just the last action
Historical notes are valuable, but they do not always make the future clear.
“Provider emailed on Tuesday” records what happened. It does not explain what should happen next.
A more useful entry would be:
“Transfer value requested from provider on Tuesday. Administrator to chase if not received by next Wednesday.”
This turns an activity record into a plan. It establishes ownership and creates a sensible review point, reducing the temptation for several people to chase independently.
4. Communicate proactively with clients
Do not wait for a client to become concerned before providing an update.
A proactive communication does not need to be lengthy. It should answer three basic questions:
- Where is the case now?
- What are we waiting for or working on?
- When should the client expect to hear from us again?
Even when there has been little progress, an honest update can be valuable:
“We are still waiting for the existing provider to supply the information needed for our analysis. We contacted them again today and will update you by next Friday, even if the information has not yet arrived.”
This does not promise an outcome the firm cannot control. It promises communication, which it can control.
5. Measure where chasing occurs
Firms often measure revenue, new business and the number of completed cases. Far fewer measure the operational friction behind those results.
Start by reviewing a sample of recent cases and asking:
- How many times did the client ask for an update?
- How often did staff request information from one another?
- Which stages generated the most reminders?
- How many actions were duplicated?
- How long did cases remain without a clear next step?
The objective is not to criticise individuals. It is to identify where the process creates uncertainty.
If most chasing occurs while collecting initial information, the submission process may need improvement. If it happens during adviser review, approval expectations may be unclear. If clients regularly call during provider delays, proactive communication may be missing.
Chasing data can reveal the parts of the workflow that need attention.
Ask yourself
Could any appropriate member of your team answer the following questions without searching several systems or interrupting a colleague?
- How many live cases does the firm currently have?
- Which cases have not progressed recently?
- Who owns the next action on each case?
- What information is outstanding?
- Which cases are at risk of missing their target date?
- Which clients are due an update?
- Where is work repeatedly becoming delayed?
If the answer is no, the firm may not primarily have a chasing problem.
It may have a visibility problem.
From chasing work to managing work
Some chasing will always be necessary.
Providers will miss expected dates. Clients will forget documents. Priorities will change. Colleagues will occasionally need reminders.
The goal is not to eliminate every follow-up. It is to stop routine uncertainty from dominating the working day.
A well-managed case should not depend on the right person remembering to ask the right question at the right moment. Its status, ownership and next action should be clear enough that the team can intervene deliberately.
That changes the nature of work.
Administrators spend more time progressing cases and less time locating them. Paraplanners gain longer periods of concentrated work. Advisers receive useful information without repeatedly requesting it. Managers can identify genuine bottlenecks instead of assembling updates manually. Clients hear from the firm before they feel the need to chase.
The most important shift is cultural.
Chasing stops being viewed as proof that the firm is busy and begins to be treated as information about the quality of its process.
Every repeated question becomes an opportunity:
Why was this information not already visible, and what could we change so nobody needs to ask next time?
Firms that ask that question consistently do more than reduce email. They create a calmer, clearer and more scalable way of working.