Open questions in client meetings: a practical guide for advisers

Most advisers believe they ask good questions. Then they listen back to a recording and hear themselves explaining, reassuring and filling silences, while the client says "yes", "no" and "I suppose so". The facts get collected, but the things that shape good advice, what the client worries about, what they want their money to do, what they have not said out loud, never come up.

Open questions in client meetings are the most reliable way to change that. This guide covers how to ask them, when closed questions are the right tool, how to listen, and how to measure your own questioning so you can see it improve.

Why questioning matters for advice

Good questions are where suitability starts. COBS 9A.2.1R requires firms to obtain information on the client's knowledge and experience, their "financial situation including his ability to bear losses" and their "investment objectives including his risk tolerance" (COBS 9A.2). You can tick those boxes with closed questions. You cannot understand them that way.

Questioning also matters for vulnerability. The FCA's guidance names four drivers of vulnerability: health, life events, resilience and capability (FG21/1). Clients rarely volunteer these in answer to a yes or no question. They come out when the client has room to talk.

And meetings are where the time goes. NextWealth's research for Fidelity, a survey of 209 advisers, found client meetings take 33% of an adviser's day (NextWealth for Fidelity). Better questions make that time count for more.

Open and closed questions: when to use each

Closed questions are not bad. You need them to confirm facts, figures and decisions. The problem is using them to explore, where they lead the client towards the answer you expect.

The funnel

A simple structure that works in most meetings:

1. Open wide: "Tell me about what has changed since we last spoke."
2. Probe: "You mentioned your health. How has that affected your plans?"
3. Reflect: "So working part time is now more likely than stopping altogether?"
4. Close and confirm: "Shall we model retirement at 63 on three days a week?"

Open questions for each part of the meeting

Objectives

• "What are you hoping this money will do for you?"
• "If we met in ten years and things had gone well, what would have happened?"
• "Which of these goals matters most to you, and why?"

Attitude to risk and capacity for loss

• "How did you feel when markets fell in the past?"
• "What would you do if this investment dropped in value next year?"
• "If you lost part of this money, how would it affect your day-to-day life?"

The last question gets to capacity for loss, which the FSA's guidance described as "the customer's ability to absorb falls in the value of their investment" (FG11/05).

Knowledge and experience

• "How have you invested in the past, and how did it go?"
• "How would you explain what this fund does to a friend?"

Circumstances and vulnerability

• "What else is going on in your life that we should know about?"
• "How would you like us to keep in touch, and is there anyone you would like involved?"

Listening and talk share

Questions only work if you leave room for the answer. Three habits make the biggest difference:

• Wait. After the client stops, count to three before you speak. Useful answers often arrive in that pause.
• Do not stack questions. Ask one question, then stop. Two or three at once lets the client answer the easiest.
• Keep explanations short. A long monologue is often a sign the meeting has turned into a presentation.

Talk share is the simplest measure of whether this is happening: how much of the meeting the adviser spoke, against how much the client spoke. There is no regulatory target, and the right balance depends on the meeting. A discovery meeting should be mostly the client talking. A meeting explaining a recommendation will have more adviser time. What matters is knowing your own pattern and whether it fits the purpose of the meeting.

A second useful signal is the number of questions the client asks. A client who asks questions is engaged and is testing their understanding, which supports the Consumer Duty's consumer understanding outcome (PS22/9).

How to measure your questioning

You cannot improve what you cannot see. If your firm records meetings, the transcript holds everything you need. Pick three recent meetings and count:

1. Talk share: the adviser's words as a share of the total.
2. Open against closed questions from the adviser.
3. Client questions: how many the client asked.
4. Longest adviser monologue: the longest stretch the adviser spoke without a break.

Write the numbers down, choose one thing to change, then measure the next three meetings. By our estimate, reviewing one meeting properly by hand takes about an hour, which is why most transcripts are never reviewed at all.

Asclto does this counting automatically. It pulls recorded meetings from Fireflies and measures talk share, open against closed questions, questions the client asked and the longest adviser monologue, all counted from the transcript and checked against it. It also reads tone of voice from the audio, scores nine dimensions including questioning and listening, and writes a coaching plan. Reports are exported as an internal record, never shared with the client. A score trend shows whether the changes are sticking. For building this into a wider programme, see our guide to coaching financial advisers.

A one-week practice plan

• Day 1: measure three recent meetings using the four counts above.
• Day 2: write three open questions for each section of your usual meeting.
• Days 3 to 5: in each meeting, focus on one habit only, such as the three-second pause.
• Day 5: measure again and compare.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good example of an open question for a financial adviser?

"What would a good retirement look like for you?" It invites the client to describe goals in their own words, which you can then probe and confirm with closed questions.

Is there an ideal talk share for client meetings?

There is no regulatory figure. It depends on the meeting's purpose. Discovery meetings should be weighted towards the client talking; explaining a recommendation needs more adviser time. Track your own pattern and judge it against the purpose.

Are closed questions bad in client meetings?

No. They are the right tool for confirming facts, figures and decisions. The problem is using closed questions to explore goals or feelings, where they steer the client towards an expected answer.

See how Asclto measures questioning in every recorded meeting, or book a twenty-minute demo on Microsoft Teams with Adam Booth, run live on a demo firm with nothing to prepare.