Choosing technology
The right technology can make all the difference when it comes to a financial advisor’s success, especially in today’s competitive business environment. Recent innovations in financial technology have provided state-of-the-art applications to handle everything from client relationship management to investment modeling to billing and document production.
These solutions have the potential to make your practice more efficient and profitable. The challenge is making sure these different technology applications work together as a seamless whole, providing your business the support and accuracy you require. Why is technology crucial for your advisory practice? Let’s review the benefits:
Technology can make you more efficient.
As you know, the process of advising clients, investing their money, and providing necessary documentation and compliance paperwork can be a time-consuming process. In many firms, these processes may account for at least half of weekly staff hours.i New technology solutions can handle back-office operations such as billing and record keeping, helping to reduce this commitment of staff time. These solutions, if fully integrated, can also reduce the risks of data-entry mistakes and miscalculations, providing higher levels of productivity, efficiency and accuracy.
Technology frees up more time to focus on clients.
Because advisory firms that invest in technology spend less staff time on back-office processes, they have more time to connect with clients and prospects. This kind of personal touch is more important than ever. A study by Salesforce found that 86% of clients want their financial advisors to be personally involved in their investment management. Yet less than half of the clients in the study felt their advisor took a proactive approach to communication and service (see Chart 1 on the next page).ii More than half of the responadents felt their advisor wouldn’t even recognize them if they passed on the street. Advisors who don’t distinguish themselves through a high-touch approach risk losing clients to robo-advisors and other competition.
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