How can wealth managers convert interactions into client engagement to drive real value in the relationship?

Expert: Antony Bream, MD – UK and Americas, Wealth Dynamix
Facilitator: Stephen Wall, Co-founder - Head of Marketplace & Content, The Wealth Mosaic

Key takeaways:

1. Communicating digitally and changing interactions and their management was necessitated by COVID-19. This was a change that affected everyone. Both wealth managers and clients alike have needed help and support to move to remote communications.
2. In the future there is likely to be a hybrid model where some face-to-face meetings and events are reintroduced. This will be combined with less formal but more frequent digital touchpoints.
3. Technology can deepen and support client engagement.
4. There is a move from capturing client data because it is a compliance requirement to capturing diverse and unstructured data for better client engagement.

Context

COVID-19 threw up all sorts of challenges around communications and forced a move to digital. Wealth managers have needed to be sensitive to client preference when it comes to the method of communication, its frequency and content. Technology that frees the adviser to focus on the value-added engagement and communications has become a relevant and necessary tool. 

COVID-19 moved us all to digital communications.

Communicating digitally and changing interactions and their management was necessitated by COVID-19. This was a change that affected everyone.  Both wealth managers and clients alike have needed help and support to move to remote communications.

Wealth managers themselves needed support and training as regards how to correctly position the webcam and make sure the background was professional.

Clients have also needed to adapt and wealth managers have needed to tread the middle line between being compliant and recording conversations and meeting the preferences of clients, not all of whom like zoom meetings. Clients have reacted well, on the whole, and virtual events have proven to be particularly popular.

Sentiment analysis has been another adaptation. Although facial movement technology has not been widely adopted there is greater recourse to asking clients how they are more frequently and asking them how they want to communicate with the relationship manager.

Move to hybrid

In the future there is likely to be a hybrid model where some face-to-face meetings and events are reintroduced. This will be combined with less formal but more frequent digital touchpoints.

Some have loved the time efficiency of virtual meetings and some yearn for a meeting in London.

Face to face is especially useful at the beginning of a relationship and there is no substitute when it comes to getting to know the client initially. But digital is a good way to make quick contact with an established client and in fact deepens the relationship.

There is no systemised way of doing this. It has to be according to client preference.

Wealth managers have needed to find a way to prospect intelligently and remotely using more and unstructured data sets. They have needed to find both new sources of data and the means to process and make sense of it.

Technology can deepen and support engagement.

Technology can deepen engagement by providing next best actions, prompt the relationship manager to ask for a piece of information that is missing or flag a life event or change. This makes for a proactive approach that can be client specific.

Technology can also be used intelligently to deepen insight and to know how to prioritise clients. It supports a good relationship manager to know which clients need more care and attention and at what point.

The technology can support that by providing segmentation not just on wealth but on time of life, life events etc. Technology can point to the different reasons to initiate an interaction and this makes for a more relevant contact – thus deepening engagement.

There is a move from capturing client data because it is a compliance requirement to capturing diverse and unstructured data for better client engagement.

The comfort levels of clients with regard to this need careful consideration. Some are less comfortable with Facebook stalking than others. The opposite applies too. The client could be looking for information on the wealth managers too.

There are also GDPR considerations regarding whether the wealth manager has a ‘legitimate interest’ in information captured – something that is already in the public domain is usually legitimate.

The issue of appropriateness is always key.

If you would like to ask any questions about this or indeed WealthTech Matters, the event, we would of course be delighted to hear from you.

Please email: charliemartin@owenjamesgroup.com.