Many firms find gathering client data challenging, but it’s crucial to onboarding new clients and starting a strong relationship.
In a recent webinar, Cornerstone Wealth Advisors partners Chase and Michael shared their onboarding process using PreciseFP. The streamlined, client-friendly process highlights five principles to enhance the client experience.
1. Address pain points and inefficiencies.
When considering the client lifecycle from the first meeting with a prospect to six months after their accounts have been funded, plenty of potential roadblocks can get in the way. A client can have difficulty entering all their data, feel overwhelmed by the process, or forget to complete a crucial step — the list of potential inefficiencies goes on and on.
When Chase and Michael set out to redevelop Cornerstone’s client service model, they walked through the process step by step to identify paint points and inefficiencies. This exercise included considering steps from the clients’ and advisors’ perspectives. One common area for improvement? Collecting new client information. As with many firms, Cornerstone was great at meeting new clients and starting a relationship, but getting information to open a new account was clunky. Instead of collecting sensitive information face to face in an awkward exchange, Cornerstone now sends a customized email to clients the same day as the first meeting that links to a PreciseFP form to gather client information and automatically sync with its CRM.
2. Remove friction.
Wealth management clients want to work with firms that make investing convenient and seamless. They don’t want to have to jump through hoops or wade through red tape to reach their financial goals. That means that advisors and firms that can remove friction to create smooth, client-focused experiences can create a strong competitive advantage.
Removing friction for clients should be the overarching strategy behind an onboarding process. By putting in front-end work to streamline processes and customize the language on onboarding forms, clients can have a clear view of the information they need to open a new account.
3. Cut out unnecessary information.
Wealth management and client onboarding can be overwhelming for clients and back-office staff. Focusing only on key information can streamline the process for everyone involved. Cornerstone selected an existing PreciseFP onboarding template from the expansive document library and customized the branding and content. Chase and Michael said that instead of adding many new sections, they focused on cutting out questions to focus on the most important details that applied to their clients. Every firm has different needs depending on its services or clientele, and slimming an existing form down to the advisor’s unique needs makes the experience easier for clients.
Advisors can link form questions to their CRM to ensure each field exports to the right area, making tracking and organizing client information easy. Streamlining the form and process also makes onboarding easier for firm employees and frees advisors to spend more time with clients.
4. Centralize information gathering.
One of the most confusing parts of onboarding is when clients need to submit information and sign multiple forms. To improve the process, Cornerstone added questions about risk tolerance to the onboarding questionnaire. Providing clients with one link to their onboarding and risk forms simplified the process.
Going a step further, clients are automatically sent to a scheduling link after submitting their onboarding information so they can set up a time with their advisor. Creating a central place for all information allows advisors to move through discovery quickly and start helping clients sooner.
5. Test the process.
Perhaps one of the most useful things Chase and Michael did was run multiple operations tests and send the form to their team until it perfectly matched their process. These tests helped eliminate any obstacles for clients and ensured advisors collected the right information. PreciseFP is highly customizable and makes it easy for firms to create a unique strategic process. Once the testing was complete, Cornerstone was confident in its streamlined onboarding and data-gathering forms.
Cornerstone is just one example of how wealth management firms use PreciseFP to streamline processes and connect with clients. It’s time to take client engagement and data gathering to the next level. Find out how PreciseFP makes it possible. Click here to learn more and start a free trial.
