In the volatile markets of the past six months, financial advisors have been urged to "call your clients" so often that this advice has become a cliché.Sometimes even the most well worn advice contains seeds of truth - arguably, the best use of time this morning for most advisors is to pick up the phone and call their clients.

In talking to advisors about this, two questions come up: Why is this so important and what to say on the call?

Why call?

The reason that it's critical to call clients is quite simple: Market events of the past while have many clients alarmed. Even if you've had in depth conversations with clients about taking a long term view, many clients are still very concerned.

After one particularlly choppy period recently, one advisor told me he had received calls from five of his better clients in one three day period. Research indicates that from 1% to 10% of unhappy customers actually complain, the rest allow resentment to fester until they ultimately leave. If you get calls from three anxious clients, those three clients represent at least thirty others -and likely more.

Failing to call (and by the way sending letters or emails, while better than nothing, is not a substitute for personal contact) runs the risk of sending one of two messages: Either the client is not important enough for you to be concerned about or you are so shell shocked that you have no idea what to say. Neither of these messages is a good one.

What to say?

The big obstacle for many advisors to picking up the phone is uncertainty about what to say.

Most clients are not looking for definitive advice. What they are looking for is some reassurance that they are important enough to pay attention to and that you are monitoring events to ensure that, within all of our limits to predict markets, their portfolio is still the right one.

Your call might be nothing more than: "As you know, markets have been very volatile the last six months. I was looking at your portfolio last week and believe that it is still fundamentally aligned correctly for the longer term. I did want to touch base with you to answer any questions you might have and also to see if you want to set up a meeting to talk about your investments further. What specific questions do you have about market events over the past while?"

A phone call can also buy you time. By booking a meeting for September or inviting your client to a luncheon presentation in October in which you'll be covering market developments, the anxiety clients feel is reduced - even if they aren't getting answers now, they know they'll get them in the next while.

One final comment. Research shows that if clients initiate a call to discuss their portfolio, the advisor gets much less credit than if he or she calls first - even if the exact same conversation takes place, you get dramatically more mileage by being proactive. If you haven't spoken to them recently, take the time this morning to call some of your better clients - there are few better uses of time.

To see a video commentary on this topic, go to

http://tv.investmentexecutive.com/video-4684-Richards-on-the-single-

best-use-of-this-summers-work-hours