Expert: Antony Bream, MD UK & Americas, Wealth Dynamix Facilitator: Stephen Wall, The Wealth Mosaic
Expert: Antony Bream, MD UK & Americas, Wealth Dynamix
Facilitator: Stephen Wall, The Wealth Mosaic
Key takeaways
- Technology is a massive enabler when it comes to the post Covid19 focus on quality client interactions and the human touch.
- Communications and CRM systems are rarely adequate when it comes to giving relationship managers the tools to engage, support and enhance the client relationship.
- Good service levels lead to referrals but wealth managers also need to leverage social media and other networks.
- The future of face to face will be determined by client demand and a hybrid model of face to face and technology will likely emerge.
- However digital is more of a challenge with prospects- the human touch to engage and meet expectations of immediacy and high service are as key as performance.
Overview
1. Technology is a massive enabler when it comes to the post Covid19 focus on quality client interactions and the human touch.
How can front office staff best manage the client lifecycle to be as productive as possible, exceed client expectations and successfully prospect? This is at the forefront of most COO’s minds- assets and revenues need to increase and cost to income ratio needs to go down. What can be done?
As things get back to normal more face to face meetings can take place. Finding and engaging with new clients is also really important and more effective when done face to face.
2. Communications and CRM systems are rarely adequate when it comes to giving relationship managers the tools to engage, support and enhance the client relationship.
Preparing for meetings with existing clients and compliance are taking up too much time, leaving too little thinking time to better service clients. The client relationship is all about whether the relationship manager can access data and information and react to it in a timely manner.
Clients also want to have ad hoc and on demand contact with their relationship managers and be able to choose the channel of communication. Communications obviously need to be secure and compliant.
Ideally a relationship manager should have the tools to be able to prioritise clients according to their needs and tools to do this are valuable. Systems can also do sentiment analysis to identify negative sentiment and give relationship managers the flag that they need to be able to turn that around.
3. Good service levels lead to referrals but wealth managers also need to leverage social media and other networks.
High levels of client service and satisfaction encourage referrals. Engaging with the whole family and meeting individual needs also means that that relatives and the next generation are more likely to stay with the wealth manager.
Finding new sources of new clients such as leveraging LinkedIn is coming to the fore. Social media now increasing in importance too- this extends beyond the professional network channels. Further growth expected here as well but still very nascent.
Robust and frictionless onboarding make for prospects that convert into clients more readily. Delays cause the relationship to falter and maybe go elsewhere, particularly with next generation who are looking at digital service providers in the retail area and expect the same within the wealth area. Clients also do lots of comparing and time, price, simplicity and efficiency can win or lose a clients.
4 The future of face to face will be determined by client demand and a hybrid model of face to face and technology will likely emerge.
Both the technological and the human side of relationship management are essential so it’s important not to run too lean on staffing levels. The challenge is to manage a hybrid approach with a mix of face to face, secure messaging and video calls.
The majority of clients are busy and don’t want to find time for meetings when something over Zoom will do- especially if the husband and wife are in different places. Video conferencing is so much more convenient and recognised as so.
Hybrid meetings where the relationship manager is there in person, but other specialists dial in, are likely to emerge.
One issue is how data can be shared within a meeting. Tailoring the information so that only what is relevant appears on screen is valuable. Obviously any data needs to be up to date and also on the same system and instantly accessible; reflecting client expectations of immediacy.
However, digital is more of a challenge with prospects- the human touch to engage and build a relationship is vital.
5. Meeting expectations of immediacy and high service are as key as performance.
When performance drops relationship managers need more than ever to be engaging with clients and supporting them. Therefore the tools to do this are essential.
Wealth managers can win and lose goodwill by good and bad processes- a small dip in investment performance is forgivable if the service is up to scratch and the client experience is good.
