Technology that Proves your Value to Clients and also Helps your Employees is a Win/Win

Technology that Proves your Value to Clients and also Helps your Employees is a Win/Win

Today’s financial advisors conduct an increasing amount of their business operations online. And as a result, they create and aggregate thousands – sometimes even millions – of data points around their own actions and those of their clients.

All this data can make it easier to collaborate as a team inside your office and then turn that increased productivity into a more enjoyable experience for your clients, but only if you have the right technology in place. Without the technology to help make sense of data, many advisors find themselves swimming in a sea of misunderstood and underutilized information.

Here are a few of the ways choosing the right technology can help you improve your relationships with clients, and also improve how your team works together.

IMPROVING THE CLIENT EXPERIENCE

Choosing technology that helps you see data across your business with simple, at-a-glance views, helps you gain insights that benefit how you work with clients. Here are two ways:

#1: Quantify Your Value to Clients – Advisors are always looking for new ways to not only provide but also demonstrate their value to clients. Tracking interactions with clients – whether that’s the number of phone calls, the time you spent preparing for your meetings, the research you’ve done for the financial plans you’ve created – enables you to bring up tangible evidence of your level of service. When clients feel good about the value of the service they are receiving, relationships will naturally benefit.

#2: Improve Your Client Experience – Automated investing platforms pose a threat to your business and not just because of their low fees. Several robos have already begun using data analytics to provide clients with more personalized advice.

Where you can win, however, is by using data metrics from business intelligence software to improve your level of service. With access to insights into each client, you can uncover trends in their behavior that inform your conversations, your level of outreach, and even the products and/or strategies you recommend.

IMPROVING THE EXPERIENCE FOR STAFF

Considering the internal workings of your office is often an overlooked component of creating a great client experience. If your team collaborates well, you can more easily serve your clients. But on the other hand, if your team doesn’t work well together, your client relationships will likely suffer.

Yet, many advisors overlook the opportunity to use tech to improve the way their office works. According to a study by Salesforce, 86% of employees and executives cite lack of collaboration for workplace failures.

So when you are analyzing your business data in an effort to better serve clients, you also need to consider how technology has the potential to greatly improve the way your team members work together.

Here are two key ways to analyze your technology to be sure it’s supporting your team’s productivity:

#1: Clearly Defined User Roles that Align with Your Team – The most obvious way to tell if a technology supports collaboration is to examine how it treats user roles. How clearly explained are those roles? What can each do? And, most importantly, do those roles match up the actual responsibilities of your staff members? If they don’t, your team is going to have a more difficult time completing tasks, which will affect their ability to serve clients effectively.

#2:  Integrations with the Right Partners – Integrations open the flow of data between platforms, reducing time spent entering data and checking facts. Check to see if your potential platform integrates with the technology that you and your team members already use in their day to day.

For some, finding the right technology can be a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. Never be afraid to rely on the people around you to not only help you make the decision, but to have an active role in deciding which technology to choose. Industry conferences, such as the T3 Advisor Conference, and news portals, such as the T3TechnologyHub, can also help as you sort through the options and opportunities.

Thom K. Hall
Thom K. Hall
Thom K. Hall, CFP®, ChFC, is a financial professional who has been advising clients on how to preserve and manage wealth for over 25 years. When he couldn’t find a business management dashboard that gave him the information he wanted, he decided to build it instead. He is now CEO of Advisor Metrix, a business intelligence and insights software designed to deliver essential data to financial professionals in a single, instantly accessible view.

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