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.