One of the biggest challenges for technologists is in creating solutions that not only solve a major problem, but that can also be readily used and embraced by the people whose problem is being solved. In other words, there is the need for building tech solutions specifically around the inherent inertia and habits of human beings. Countless stories exist of a great new tech solution being bought with high hopes and expectations to just sit there—rarely being used by anyone. It takes a purposeful and focused effort by technologists in designing their high tech with a high touch; of knowing the limits of the technology and understanding the human beings they are innovating for. To better understand how to address these inherent problems, the Institute for Innovation Development talked with Corey Westphal, CEO of Mobile Assistant who is actively infusing high touch to transform traditional dictation service technology into a tool that truly engages and boosts advisor effectiveness
Bill Hortz: What did your original research tell you about the needs for and the problems with dictation services in the financial services industry?
Corey Westphal: Before Mobile Assistant, I owned and operated a medical transcription service company for 16 years. When I initially researched potential industries that could benefit from high quality dictation other than the health-care industry, the financial services industry immediately came to the top of the list. I was however, surprised to discover a high quality dictation solution did not exist for financial professionals.
Advisors who were interested in using dictation as a client meeting note documentation tool were forced to settle for inaccurate software solutions or dictation services that were not much better. The time spent editing notes produced by these dictation options was, in my opinion, a big reason for the lack of adoption by advisors. Why use dictation to document meeting notes if clean up and editing is required for it to be an accurate solution. It was both an eye opening and exciting revelation because I knew this industry could benefit so much from a solution like Mobile Assistant.
Hortz: How does a dictation service “bullet proof” an advisor’s practice and what kind of adoption impact have you found that it can have on an advisor’s overall business?
Westphal: From a compliance standpoint, the right dictation solution can help provide a layer of protection for advisors in three very important ways: 1. Capturing meeting notes efficiently and accurately saving hours of typing time each week, 2. Increasing meeting documentation detail greatly supports compliance and fiduciary responsibility protection, and 3. Having real-time access to previous meeting notes better prepares advisors for upcoming meetings and protects against recollection mistakes.
As for the impact on an overall business, the adoption impact was clearly illustrated by a 2017 case study by one of our largest financial services customers. The study of over 1100 advisors compared asset-growth of Mobile Assistant adopters versus non- or infrequent adopters. Mobile Assistant adopters for client meeting notes averaged over $400,000 in increased asset-growth, and, for new advisors, there was over $2 million asset growth increase compared to their counterparts who started their careers without the service. One of the largest impacts was the increased revenue to the overall organization of over $260 million directly attributable to the use of dictation. A powerful story of what dictation adoption can do for individuals and organizations.
Hortz: The underlying voice-to-text dictation technology hasn’t changed much but what refinements have you made with Mobile Assistant to more humanize the technology?
Westphal: Software solutions like Dragon and Siri have and will continue to improve, but there will always be a need for a human component in the voice to text translation process to ensure accuracy. Although Mobile Assistant is categorized as financial technology, one aspect of our cutting edge technology that we have in place is the means by which we are connecting our customers to the best transcriptionists in the dictation service industry. At Mobile Assistant we are committed to utilizing U.S.-based, professional transcriptionists exclusively.
What does professional mean to us and why does it matter? Our transcriptionists are training on current financial and insurance terminology, and are only hired after extensive testing, background checks and interviews. As an added layer of quality assurance, Mobile Assistant also employs full time quality assurance editors who support our growing transcription staff. If there is a question about a term or difficulty deciphering a dictation, our transcriptionists have the ability to flag the note for quality review so our quality assurance editors can listen to the dictation and complete it. The human touch is the key ingredient in our process to produce highly accurate notes for our customers, and is all done behind the scenes.