These days, lots of advisors are working harder than they ever have, putting in extra hours to stay on top of market developments, review portfolios, seek opportunities to take tax losses and reach out to clients.

Unfortunately, not all investors see it this way - one client I interviewed recently told me: " When I emailed my advisor in October, I got a message that he was on holiday and I should talk to his assistant. I spoke to him after he got back and he seemed a bit matter of fact about everything that's gone on. He just said ‘This is nothing we haven't been before, we'll get through this the same way as we did other market corrections.' I'm not really sure he's taking this downturn as seriously as he should be."

On Wednesday, I spoke to an advisor who had met with clients last week and was notified on Monday that they were moving their account. His comment: "We spent hours preparing for that meeting and at the end of the day recommended that the clients not make any changes. I wonder whether we clearly let them know how hard we had looked at alternatives before arriving at that advice."

Comments like this aren't unique. Clients want to feel that you're taking the market downturn at least as hard as they are. To get maximum advantage of all the extra time and effort you're putting in, just going the extra mile isn't enough - you have to ensure you let clients know how seriously you're taking the decline in their portfolio and the things you're doing in response.

There are two issues to consider.

Your first priority is to figure out how best to spend your time right now - is it tax loss harvesting, putting together the case for rebalancing, reviewing manager performance, looking for new investment opportunities in the credit markets (an area in which we appear to be seeing historically high spreads) or reviewing new economic and market data?

Once you've invested the time and effort to go the extra mile, the next step is to let clients know what you're doing. Bear in mind that in delivering your core message to clients, you have to walk a fine line in communicating how seriously you're taking this bear market and the losses they've incurred - you can't sound panicked, but nor do you want to be seen as dismissing it as no big deal.

One of the speakers at last spring's Top Advisor Summit talked about his practice of calling clients on Sundays, with the words: "I came into the office today to catch up and wanted to touch base with you about your portfolio." An advisor I spoke to recently has started doing the same thing - and finds that most clients respond better when he calls them in the evening or on weekends than when he does this during the day.

"Clients have been hit hard by this and want to feel that it's not business as usual for me" was his comment. For clients who don't like being contacted outside of business hours, emails sent on the evening and weekend demonstrate you are putting in extra time and effort.

Another investor I interviewed talked about getting a call from her advisor on Monday morning, saying that he and his team had spent Sunday in the office looking at some alternative directions in which to take her portfolio and wanting to set a time to meet. "It may be silly," she said "but that made me feel better, in these kinds of markets I want to know that my advisor is pulling out all the stops to do everything he can."

The conclusion is quite simple - it's not enough to go the extra mile for clients, in times like these you have to make sure your clients know all the things you're doing to see them through the current downturn and that you're taking their losses as seriously as they are.