In today’s world, where you can order a pair of shoes in minutes and stream content on demand, why should interacting with your financial advisor be any different? Clients increasingly expect the same level of convenience and immediacy in their financial dealings. They want to engage with their financial plans and explore scenarios in real-time, not just once a year during a review.
Yet, while many financial firms invest heavily in technology, they often fail to harness its full potential. Firms spend more on technology than ever before. Do firms believe that new technology will drive business growth? The real challenge—and opportunity—lies in leveraging technology not just to manage operations but to transform the client experience.
In this blog, we’ll explore how technology can help you meet modern client expectations and drive growth. It’s time to rethink how you use tech to make your services not only efficient but exceptional.
Better Tech = Better Client Experience
Most firms recognize the importance of client experience in determining their future success — after all, business hinges on relationships. But not all of them understand the crucial role of technology in shaping client experience.
New and even established clients bring expectations when they meet with their advisors, whether or not the advisor is aware of it. For example, most clients expect their financial advisors to have a mobile-optimized, easy-to-use website. Does your firm meet their demand?
Your clients may have additional preferences for the role of technology in their financial lives. They may want an easily accessible portal where they check their balances. They may enjoy access to cryptocurrency or automated advising. If you are unable to provide the type of on-demand services clients expect, you may lose potential clients.
Better Tech = Better Client Relationships
The role of your tech stack in client relationships may seem less obvious, but firms that invest time and money in client-focused technology are the clear winners. It’s one thing to buy new software, but if you don’t use it well, you’re missing the same opportunities as you would if you’d never purchased the program in the first place.
When onboarding new clients, their first impression forms the foundation for their ongoing relationship with the firm. Not only does your willingness — or lack of it — to embrace digital investing trends demonstrate your adaptability, but it also shows the value you place on your clients’ time.
For example, if you have access to a CRM package but don’t use it as intended, it wastes your clients’ time when you ask for the same information multiple times or have to copy and paste information between applications. If you don’t use document management software or it doesn’t integrate well with your CRM, how patient will your new clients be when they have to spend an hour signing documents they could have submitted electronically? How much of your client interaction time is spent filling out paperwork rather than building relationships?
Better Tech = More Conversions
Whether you serve a wide variety of clients or specialize in a specific demographic, your clients are still individuals with differing needs and wants. Paradoxically, although automation seems less personal on the surface, it can lead to deeper connections with your clients. Once you understand your clients and their goals and interests, it becomes much easier to target them with content that will resonate with them on a deeper level.
You’ll run out of time if you try to provide individual content to all your clients yourself. If you send each of your clients identical information every month, they may dismiss your content as irrelevant, leading to missed opportunities. The right technology can help you tailor your content to target clients with the right message at the right time.
Better Tech = More Efficiency
If your firm follows the same processes you’ve always used without considering efficiency, you may be wasting time and money. When you fill out spreadsheets because you don’t have integrated document management software, you’re paying people to use their time less efficiently than they could. The same is true of copying and pasting documents, searching for information, moving back and forth between applications, or other time-wasting tasks. When your productivity is low, profitability and scalability suffer.
Ready to give your clients the experience they’re expecting? PreciseFP is here to help. With freedom from manual data entry, copy-pasting, or human errors, it’s no wonder users saved over 33,000 hours and $5 million in 2023. See for yourself how PreciseFP can enhance your practice—start your free trial today.
