Imagine a client leaving a portfolio review with an encouraging performance report and an unanswered question: can I afford to work less next year?
The advisor may have explained the investments well. The client still needs help connecting those investments to a decision. In this imagined meeting, the gap is between the work presented and the question the client brought into the room.
Research on financial advice offers several ways to understand that gap. People describe trust, useful advice and relief from handling financial matters as reasons to choose or continue an advisory relationship. Costs and investment results remain part of the picture.12
For an advisor, the useful task is to make the work understandable from the client's side. That means explaining how advice relates to a personal goal, what the relationship costs and what will happen after the meeting. Broad research can suggest where to look. The individual client has to supply the answer.
Trust has to show up in the details
In August 2026, TransUnion reported findings from a survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers with at least $20,000 in investable assets. Among current investors, 65% cited trust and reputation among their top factors in choosing a wealth-management provider, compared with 49% who cited fees and pricing.1
Those figures support a narrow conclusion: trust mattered to many respondents. They do not show that fees were unimportant, that clients would accept any price or that trust has become more important over time. The same person can care about both trust and cost.
There is a practical question underneath the survey result. What would let a client judge whether the advisor deserves that trust?
Consider a recommendation with an uncertain outcome. An advisor can explain the reasoning, identify the assumptions and say what would cause them to reconsider. The client gets something they can examine. A confident answer without those details asks the client to take more on faith.
The same principle applies to a mistake or delay. Naming what happened and explaining the next step gives the client a basis for deciding whether the response is adequate. These are practical ways to make a relationship accountable. They are not a formula that guarantees loyalty.
Advice needs to answer the question behind the goal
A goal such as retirement is a starting point. It leaves a lot unsaid.
One client might want to leave a demanding job. Another might enjoy work but want the freedom to stop. Their financial circumstances could look similar while the decision they need help making is different. Asking what they want to change in daily life can make the planning question more precise.
Morningstar's January 2024 research examined responses from 620 people who had an advisor, drawn from four surveys conducted in 2021 and 2022. Respondents explained in their own words why they continued the relationship. Discomfort handling financial matters was the most common coded reason. Advice quality, behavioral coaching, returns and specific financial needs also appeared among the leading categories.2
That finding does not mean every client wants to hand everything over. Some may want help thinking through a decision while retaining close involvement. Others may want the advisor to handle agreed tasks. It is worth asking which kind of help the client means.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau offers a useful way to broaden that conversation. Its financial well-being framework considers security and freedom of choice, both now and in the future.3 These are different questions. Being able to meet today's commitments does not settle whether someone feels prepared for a future disruption.
Canadian research makes a related distinction. The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada's report on its 2018 survey separates meeting commitments, feeling financially comfortable and resilience for the future.4 This is older background research, not a reading of Canadian sentiment in 2026. It helps name the outcomes a client might care about.
An advisor could ask, "What would you like your money to make possible that it doesn't make possible today?" The answer may lead to a concrete planning task. It may also expose a trade-off the client has not yet resolved. Either is more useful than assuming a goal label explains the whole person.
Clients need to understand what they are paying for
A fee can be disclosed and still be poorly understood.
Morningstar's August 2026 discussion of advisor mistakes identifies inadequate fee explanations as a leading frustration in its underlying research.5 That gives advisors a reason to check understanding instead of treating the delivery of a document as the end of the conversation.
A useful explanation connects the price to the work. Where the information is available, show the amount in dollars as well as the charging method. Explain what services are included, which costs are separate and what could change the bill. Be clear about work the relationship does not cover.
For example, "We review your plan" leaves the client to guess what a review involves. Naming the assumptions to revisit and the decisions to discuss makes the service easier to understand. It also lets the client say that a different question is more urgent.
This is not an argument for a particular compensation model. Different arrangements create different questions. The client should be able to describe what they are paying, what they receive and where another charge might arise. These communication suggestions do not replace the firm's disclosure obligations.
Good communication removes the need to chase
A client who sends a question on Monday may not need a complete answer by Tuesday. They may need to know that someone has received it and when an answer is likely.
Morningstar's discussion also distinguishes frustration over slow tasks from the failure to set expectations.5 For a practice, that suggests a simple service question: does the client know who is handling the request, what happens next and when they should hear back?
Canadian evidence gives ease of interaction a place alongside the relationship itself. In J.D. Power's 2025 Canada Investor Satisfaction Study, trust, people and ease of doing business were leading dimensions of advised-investor satisfaction. The study drew on 4,311 advised investors and 2,417 do-it-yourself investors, with fieldwork in late 2024.6
None of this establishes a universal meeting schedule. A client handling a major decision may want more contact than someone whose circumstances are stable. Preferences about phone calls, written explanations and meetings also deserve a direct question.
An advisor can agree on a normal contact schedule and explain what should prompt an earlier conversation. After a meeting, a brief record of the decision, unresolved questions and next responsible person can make the work easier to follow. More messages are not automatically more useful. Each message should help the client understand or do something.
Leave room for clients to disagree
Understanding a client requires a way for the client to correct the advisor.
A question such as "Does that make sense?" can invite a quick yes without revealing much. A more specific question gives the conversation somewhere to go: "Which part of this would be hardest to follow through on?" Or, "What have I assumed about your plans that I should check?"
These are suggested prompts, not research-tested scripts. Their purpose is to make disagreement useful. A client might understand a proposal and still be uncomfortable with its trade-offs. They might also have changed their mind about a goal since the last review.
Returning to the imagined client who wants to work less, the next conversation could reveal that income is only one concern. They may be uncertain about leaving colleagues or about how to spend their time. An advisor can acknowledge those questions while keeping the financial analysis within their role. They do not need to promise certainty or solve every part of the transition.
The useful question is what this client needs next
The studies discussed here ask different questions, use different samples and cover different periods. Stated preferences are not the same as observed behavior. People who already have an advisor cannot tell us everything about those who left or never wanted one.
Still, the evidence gives advisors useful questions to bring into a relationship. Can the client explain how the advice relates to their goal? Do they understand the costs? Do they know what remains uncertain and who will act next?
A review can end with good investment results and unfinished personal decisions. A better conversation makes those unfinished decisions visible. The client leaves knowing what the numbers mean for the question they actually came to discuss.
Footnotes
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TransUnion, Trust and Transparency Matter Most in Wealth Management Relationships, August 20, 2026. U.S. consumer survey; stated provider-selection preferences. ↩ ↩2
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Morningstar, Are You Earning Your Keep?, January 2024, pages 2, 4 and 5. Open responses from 620 advised respondents; fieldwork in 2021 and 2022; multiple response categories allowed. ↩ ↩2
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Measuring financial well-being, December 2015, Figure 1, page 7. A conceptual framework, not evidence of an advisor's effect on outcomes. ↩
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Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, Financial well-being in Canada: Survey results. Online survey of 1,935 Canadian adults in February 2018; conceptual background. ↩
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Danielle Labotka, Morningstar, The Financial Advisor Faux Pas That Matter Most, August 17, 2026. Public research discussion and transcript; publication date is not a claim about fieldwork timing. ↩ ↩2
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J.D. Power, 2025 Canada Investor Satisfaction Study, April 2025. Fieldwork October through December 2024. ↩