Technology like smartphones, tablet PCs such as the iPad and similar Internet-enabled devices have become ubiquitous in everyday life. They're also fundamentally changing investors' attitudes about how to best manage their financial lives -- and who they should seek out for guidance and advice in the process.

These changing attitudes have major implications for financial advisors. To stay competitive and attract the next generation of affluent investors, RIAs will need to increasingly rely on the latest technology to meet their clients' expectations as they evolve.

The good news: RIAs can use the same technologies that are driving behavioral changes to deliver an enhanced level of service -- a highly personalized Know Me experience. What's more, those technologies are easier than ever for RIAs to access and integrate into their practices.

Tech And The Changing Investor
The use of Web-enabled devices like the iPad and iPhone has exploded in recent years. One in three adults in the U.S. now owns a tabletⁱ -- most likely the iPad, which controls 98 percent of the tablet market.ⁱⁱ Meanwhile, smartphone sales have surpassed PC shipments^.iii

These devices and what they offer are reshaping consumers' attitudes, expectations and behaviors when it comes to their relationships with a wide variety of service providers-including financial advisors.

Consider, for example, the unprecedented degree of personalization that occurs today when interacting with online retailers that use customers' viewing and buying histories to offer suggestions of other products and services of interest or the local pizza shop that instantly pulls up a customer's phone number, credit card info and previous orders when he calls for a delivery.

Consumers' daily lives increasingly consist of a series of interactions that are customized specifically for them in real time by providers who "know" them on some level. This type of personalization is becoming expected-even demanded.

Such demand is having a direct impact on how investors manage their financial lives and on the advisor-client relationship itself, as more investors tap into technology to gather financial information, analyze it and ultimately make decisions about their wealth.

Take social media channels, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. A Forrester Research study of investors who were online, had more than $500,000 in assets and worked with a financial advisor found that a full 93 percent of these investors have a social networking account^iv. These are your clients. They're using social media. And you can bet that for many of them, it's influencing how they learn about financial and investment-related topics, research investment ideas and make buying decisions (with or without your help.) In creating yet another avenue for investors to access knowledge and advice with one click, social media is changing the conversation between advisors and clients and how they interact.

What's more, this personalized information experience has become increasingly portable and on-demand. Investors now count on having access to information anywhere at any time-and on whatever device they want. This makes sense given the huge growth of handheld and mobile technologies noted above. However, the extent to which investors have come to rely on these devices is striking. Forrester reports that 25 percent of U.S. online adults have an interest in using their mobile device as the main channel for their personal financial lives^v. These devices, which let users conduct financial transactions from the comfort of their living rooms, are empowering investors and giving them more flexibility than ever. The financial advisor sitting in his or her physical office is no longer the client's only link to the financial world-and may not even be the primary one.

Delivering A Know Me Service Experience
In the face of such developments, RIAs must ask themselves what it will take going forward to deliver a true "Know Me" experience that gives their clients the information and resources they want, when and how they want them delivered. As clients look to advisors to bring a highly personalized, highly flexible and "real time" experience to their financial lives, advisors will need to respond. For most, the response will require using technology to respond faster and more proactively, and to communicate with their clients through a variety of channels.

Some advisors argue that these new expectations and behaviors around evolving technologies don't apply to their existing clients. While that may be true in some cases-an 85-year-old retiree may not be looking to research stocks on an iPhone, for example-it would be foolish to assume that older investors aren't interested in technology-enhanced service. (Just think about how many people's parents are regular Facebook users.  Or how many now purchase goods and services online.)

What's more, the need to deliver a technology-enhanced Know Me experience goes well beyond advisors' current client base to younger generations, for whom all this web-enabled technology is the norm. Younger affluent investors and entrepreneurs as well as the children and grandchildren of today's clients will expect any advisor they work with to use technology to provide customized, on-demand service and rapid response communications. These prospective clients will be hugely important to the future of RIAs' businesses.

So what will it take? Bringing true "anytime, anywhere, any device" service to clients will require advisors to take advantage of the same technologies and trends that are driving the changes in investors' behaviors in the first place. In particular, three technologies will be key drivers of the new Know Me experience:

1. CRM. A robust client relationship management system in which all key client information resides serves as the command center of a Know Me service experience. A CRM should include all the basic information (personal data such as a client's birthday, the names of their children and so on) as well as more detailed characteristics that help advisors customize their interactions with clients. For example, one advisor we work with uses CRM to categorize clients by the source of their wealth (inherited, entrepreneur, etc.) and other psychographic information. Each type of client tends to react differently during periods of market volatility. By having such information readily available, the advisor can proactively reach out to various clients when necessary in a highly personalized way.

CRM becomes exponentially more valuable when it is integrated with other technologies, such as the portfolio management and custodial systems, and information from those systems is fed into the CRM. Such cross-integration gives advisors a complete picture of each client at their fingertips-helping them respond to nearly any client question immediately in real time and deliver highly personalized service. Schwab found that 76 percent of advisors using CRM in this integrated way were extremely or very satisfied with their system, compared to just 29 percent of advisors who were using CRM in more basic ways.^vi

2. Cloud computing. Quite simply, delivering on the promise of "anytime, anywhere, any device" would be impossible without cloud technology-it is the essential muscle that powers the Know Me experience. At its core, the cloud involves renting technology instead of buying it. Cloud users have their files, software and client information stored remotely, rather than on their hard drives or servers at their office. This allows advisors to access whatever information they need on-demand and in any environment-such as a client's living room (or boardroom).

Beyond its ability to deliver information to any location, the cloud enables small firms to greatly reduce their spending and other resources on technology infrastructure-installing, maintaining and upgrading servers within their offices, for example. Advisors can instead devote that time and capital to value-added, client-facing activities that generate new business and greater client retention, loyalty and referrals.

3. Mobile devices. Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets are the personality or "style" of the Know Me experience. Thanks to their user-friendly features such as graphic interfaces and touch screens, these devices can present normally static printed data (think a pie chart showing a client's asset allocation) in more dynamic and interactive ways that create more engagement between advisor and client.

For example, an advisor might wirelessly connect an iPad to a television and use it to navigate through a client's quarterly report. The advisor can drill down from a high level (the client's overall asset allocation) to specifics (the individual holdings in each asset class and their historical performance) simply by touching the screen. By making traditionally staid data visually "come alive" in front of clients, advisors create a richer, more value-added experience that sparks deeper, more substantive conversations. Our technology consultants at Schwab Advisor Services talk about how meetings used to be "heads down," with the client and the advisor hunched over copies of printed materials.  Now, meetings can be "heads up," with both advisor and client focused together on one screen where data is displayed in a compelling manner and can be manipulated instantly.

If the thought of integrating all this technology sounds intimidating, don't fear. It's become easier than ever for advisors of all sizes to use these technologies to support their service efforts. One big reason is that technology providers are increasingly offering solutions created to address RIAs' unique needs and business models. Advisors today can tap a large and growing number of resources that are tailored specifically around how their firms operate. What's more, the technology itself has become more affordable and user friendly than ever. Indeed, advisors are already embracing these technologies: 40 percent to 50 percent of RIAs currently use a tablet device^vii.

Capturing The Opportunity
Technology is reshaping the type of information that financial advisors' clients seek, the way they want to access that information and ultimately they way they will use it make decisions about their financial lives. It's also influencing their choices about who they want to get their advice from.

In short, RIAs large and small must embrace new technologies that will allow them to meet ever-evolving client attitudes and preferences. By using CRM, the cloud and mobile devices to deliver a service experience that increases personalization, on-demand access and mobility, advisors will position themselves to better serve their existing clients-and capture the emerging wave of younger investors that will be crucial to their future success.

Neesha Hathi is senior vice president of Advisor Technology Solutions at Charles Schwab & Co. Inc. and a member of the senior leadership team for Schwab Advisor Services.  In her role, Hathi is responsible for defining and developing Schwab's technology offering for registered investment advisors and other institutional clients at Schwab.

ⁱInternational Data Corporation

ⁱⁱComscore

ⁱⁱⁱGartner, Inc., November 2012

^ivForrester Research, North American Technographics Benchmark Survey, 2011

^vForrester Research, North American Technographics Benchmark Survey, 2011

^viSchwab Advisor Services i

^viiGartner, Inc. August 2012