An independent registered rep who has been thinking of moving to an RIA-only practice is likely to be less eager to make the move, particularly if she's getting good technology from her B-D. Meanwhile, the cost and hassle of maintaining an RIA-likely to worsen as a new regulatory regime is imposed-could force some RIAs to conclude that affiliating with a B-D is simpler and less costly.
VOIP phone systems are being adopted in advisor offices. At conferences I spoke at a year ago, I would ask advisors in the audience if they were using Voice-Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) phone systems. About 2% or 3% of those in the audience would raise their hands. Now when I ask the question, 5% or 10% raise their hands. The benefits of VOIP are becoming better known, but most firms have only just started to find ways VOIP can cut costs and provide more features.
My company has ten phone lines and 13 full-time employees. After we switched to VOIP, our phone bill was cut from $800 monthly to $400, and we got a bonanza of new features.
With VOIP, your phone dashboard is on the Web. So you can check voice mail over the Web and all messages can be e-mailed to you. When you leave the office, you can forward calls to your cell phone or a home phone. Everyone thinks they're calling your office when you're at your beach condo.
Sophisticated users can use their computers as their phones. The software interface for dialing and using the phone is called a "softphone." The softphone allows you to drag and drop calls to transfer them to other extensions. You can also text message co-workers and create a "conference room" for multiparty calls.
Managers can be set up to monitor calls of subordinates without their knowing, which can be great for training employees and ensuring your staff delivers good customer service. Implementing this feature in my firm has made a big difference because I can listen in on conversations, which keeps personal calls to a minimum and ensure staff provides excellent service (and that customers treat your staff fairly).
In addition, you can record calls and integrate a VOIP system with your CRM. In my company, caller ID identifies all of our clients when they call; their calls are recorded and automatically put in each client's folder in our CRM. For advisors, such a system is great for customer service as well as compliance.
One caveat: Transitioning to VOIP can be a nightmare. Call quality may be poor and you could get frustrated fast. You also need to choose between hosting a system yourself (for more sophisticated firms) and using a hosting system, and you want to be sure your call quality is not degraded because of too many bounces across Internet servers before reaching your service provider. Consider hiring a knowledgeable consultant to help with implementation. A $1,000 consulting fee can save you a lot of time and aggravation.
Search engine optimization, local listings and social media. I'm lumping these three items together because they're related. They're forms of content marketing. Content marketing is when you post content-articles, links, tweets, comments-useful to your target clients. Search engines scan and index all the content on the Internet, which establishes your search engine rankings.
Everybody you're networked with and how they're related are factors in your search engine rankings. For example, if a lot of doctors comment on and tweet links to your blog about asset protection trusts regularly, your name is likely to appear in searches about "asset protection for doctors."