Client experience isn’t just what happens when an advisor meets with a client for their annual check-in. It’s also about all the things a client experiences when they aren’t directly meeting with their advisor. It takes more than an attentive advisor; it takes a whole well-functioning operations team.
With a record breaking number of advisor transitions, firms who understand that equipping their advisors with the ability to deliver exceptional client experiences is part of what puts them ahead.
As your organization looks for ways to grow by attracting talented advisors, defining the client experience you can help them deliver becomes critical in proving your value as the next destination on their career journey.
Client Experience Begins in Marketing and Sales
The client experience a firm delivers starts with interactions that go all the way back to the first impressions formed about that firm. Usually, those interactions are created by marketing initiatives like social media posts, blogs, or discovery through search engines.
As a client receives information and decides to reach out (or is contacted by the sales team) the first complication in a client experience often rears its head — what if the handoff between marketing and sales doesn’t go smoothly?
It’s here that having a unified CRM system yields positive returns. When a client’s interactions with a brand are already being tracked, sales has a history to refer to so they don’t go into conversations with no visibility.
If advisors are handling sales conversations, this kind of transparency and insight directly benefits their ability to close clients. Their conversations and relationships don’t have to start at ground level. Instead, they begin with knowledge and can steer conversations to the client’s critical needs right from the start.
Building Interactions with a Technology-Forward Approach
Great technology is the glue that holds a digital-first client experience together, and at the heart of that experience is data transparency and a great user experience.
While data transparency begins with the marketing and sales handoff, it continues and becomes even more important during the ongoing conversations that happen with a client over the years.
It’s here that a comprehensive wealth management platform shines. By seeing a client’s financial plan, meeting notes, and aggregated account holdings in a single dashboard view, advisors can deliver better service over the long term and be more present in the moment because they aren’t hunting for data.
Even better is when a client can engage in that same information through a client portal that gives them the same or similar information that their advisor can access. Creating that type of shared user experience connects advisors and clients and simplifies communication.
All in all, it makes advice easier to give. That’s what advisors want to do with their time. If you can equip them with the technology that makes it simple for them to do their jobs well, your organization has an immediate leg up.
The Last Phase of Client Experience: Self Service
Early on, we mentioned that client experience goes far beyond direct interactions. When your organization offers a truly digital client experience, those non-advisor interactions become a critical way to build trust even without an advisor’s involvement.
Far from being a way to provide clients with less service, the idea of self-service in a digital environment is expected and even desired as a way for clients to get what they want, when they want it.
The best way to stand up a fast client self-service option is through a dedicated, custom-built client portal. The portal alleviates advisors or client services from answering routine questions and frees up their time to focus on more demanding work, and it also gives clients the type of transparency and access that they want.
The pairing of technology with great human interaction is the first building block of a superior client experience. When advisors know that an organization prioritizes CX, they can also be confident that the same organization prioritizes delivering an advisor experience that builds on their client service and gives them tools to grow and adapt as well.
When put together thoughtfully, technology and the human side of advice don’t just coexist—they build each other up. And they can build your organization, and your pursuit of the best advisors, along with them.