With clients forced to adapt to a pandemic over the past
year, wealth managers have learned lessons that will carry over into the return
to normalcy.
In a panel at Financial Planning’s INVEST conference
moderated by editor-in-chief Chana Schoenberger, executives from wealth management
firm Edward Jones, asset manager AllianceBernstein and fintech Kasisto
described how shifting expectations during the pandemic have led to major
changes in advisor and client experiences.
At AllianceBernstein, Global Head of Business Transformation
Koley Corte says the lasting takeaway for her firm is speed.
“We've been able to make decisions really quickly,” Corte
says. “We've been able to approve things differently to consider some of the
corporate frameworks that we would normally bring to bear
differently...Listening to the customer, adapting our model and moving quickly
are things that I think we knew we needed to do, we accelerated in this period
and I think we need to keep in place.”
Advisors and firms eager to retain clients’ children and
grandchildren in the case of an inheritance have also embraced remote group
meetings, according to Schoenberger.
“This is something we actually hear a lot from financial
advisors, that they are going to have a better time working with
multi-generational families now over Zoom, because it's important to get people
who don't physically live in the same place,” she says. “And if the kids live
in one place, the grandkids live in another place. They may never have met
grandma and grandpa's financial advisor.”
Edward Jones has embarked on a “digital acceleration
strategy” in recent years powered by the company’s investment of roughly $500
million toward enhancing its tech. The firm has launched 10 new tools relating
to virtual business operations such as a service helping advisors find
prospects on LinkedIn, a webinar hub and software enabling clients to game out
the impact of a potential investment decision on their portfolio, according to
Principal Zar Toolan.
In addition, the firm rolled out a mobile app in the past
year that has attracted nearly a million users and a new version of its website
that has more than 3.5 million active users, Toolan says, calling it an
“understatement” to suggest the firm has a treasure trove of data informing its
tech. Edward Jones has 15 other pilots in the works at its 15,000 branches
studying how to leverage its relationships with product manufacturers and
fintech vendors.
“I'm fond of the quote that, ‘A client's last great experience
anywhere is their new expectation for service everywhere,’” Toolan says. “It
doesn't matter if it's a GrubHub experience or an Uber experience or whatever
it is that they're using. Like, ‘Wow, this technology worked really well. And
that excited me, that engaged me.’”
With major clients like JPMorgan Chase, TD Bank and Manulife
Bank, Kasisto has been helping institutions create digital assistants that give
clients the ability to navigate the firms’ massive numbers of services and
products more easily, says Senior Vice President Stefan Savov. Kasisto aims to
remove “the complexity of search and navigation” from the equation with the
artificial intelligence-powered digital tools, Savov says.
“We're thinking of it as an unchanneled experience — this is
equally useful and valuable on the web, on voice, on mobile,” he says. “Just
enable folks in a very simple manner to say, ‘This is what I'm trying to
accomplish, do it for me.’ That's a key tenet for us when it comes to effective
digital sales service.”
Click here for the
original article.