Clients have never been busier or more time pressed - and often have shorter attention spans as a result.

That's why for larger clients who you meet with regularly, you should consider replacing some of those face to face meetings with structured phone meetings. Note that these calls are not like the calls you typically make now, which are more ad hoc and informal in nature, but in fact have many of the qualities of formal meetings.

Let's be clear, clients still want to hear from you - in fact given continuing volatile markets, chances are they want to hear from you more than ever.

But they typically want each of those interactions to be shorter.

And they're increasingly reluctant to invest the time to meet face to face. That's especially true if your office is downtown in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary or Vancouver - more and more people hate coming downtown in big cities, fighting traffic and paying for parking.

Bear in mind, you still need to have one annual meeting with key clients -  even if you have to go to them rather than having them come to you, touching base once a year really is essential. There's still no substitute for face to face contact to maintain an emotional connection.

But then you could supplement that meeting with shorter quarterly or for key clients monthly 15 to 20 minute phone calls.

Making calls more powerful

The key is to make those phone calls feel as much like face to face meetings as possible.

First, schedule a phone meeting like you would a regular meeting. The good news is that most clients can accommodate a 20 minute call in their work schedule.

Next, you need an agenda that you send beforehand that you walk clients through on the call, just like you would for a meeting in person.

And finally, you need to use technology to keep clients' attention on the call.

I've talked to some advisors who've begun using webcams and Skype, so there's actually a window in their computer where they and their client can see each other as they're talking.

One advisor suggests to older clients who have significant assets that in advance of a phone meeting, his son will go to their home, install a web cam, show clients how it works and then leave it there to use with their kids and grandkids.  In terms of response, nothing he's ever done for clients has approached the impact of setting up that webcam.

Using webcams to talk to clients today is very rare ... but I believe that within three years it will be common place.

Using web meeting platforms

In the meantime another approach is to employ one of the online meeting platforms such as WebEx, Microsoft Live Meeting or Go to Meeting, costing as little as $50 a month.

A key problem on phone calls is that peoples' attention drifts - while you're talking they look out the window, answer email or surf the net. As a result, they're not really listening to you.

With online meeting platforms, you email clients a link before a meeting. When you're on the phone, you ask them to click on it ... and when they do, you control their computer, what you see on your screen appears on theirs.  And this also works for spouses in different locations, who can both log on and conference into a call.

During the call, you can put up a meeting agenda, walk through clients' allocation by assets or geography or show them slides from a presentation you've prepared.

Because they're looking at their computer screen, clients are more engaged and focused. Another important benefit is that advisors who do these tell me that conversations tend to be tighter and more likely to stay on track ... this approach can be both an effective and efficient alternative to face to face meetings.

I recently talked to one advisor who earlier this year assigned an associate to do nothing but telephone reviews with key clients from 1:30 to 5 each afternoon - using this approach, this associate typically does 5 reviews each afternoon, so 25 a week and 100 a month.  He uses part of his mornings to prepare for these and follow up; the feedback from clients has been extremely positive - and they've actually brought in some new assets as a result.

I spoke to one advisor about this who at first was unsure about this idea ... but then commented that when email first came out, he'd resisted that as well  - and today couldn't live without it.

I believe that the trend towards using technology to enhance client communication will only accelerate.

As an advisor, you have two choices - you can get in front of this trend and embrace it now or wait until lots of other advisors are doing this and play catch up, perhaps losing a client in the process.