The future young beneficiaries of the estimated $30 trillion great wealth transfer want more communication with their advisors, according to a new study by marketing information company J.D. Power.
Millennial investors said in surveys that while digital tools keep them interested in their investments, they’d prefer to speak with their advisors rather than just using technology to access their accounts, according to J.D. Power’s 2018 U.S. full service investor satisfaction study.
"The financial services industry has been fixated on the idea that cracking the code on millennial investors means huge investments in digital and mobile," said Mike Foy, senior director of the wealth management practice at J.D. Power.
Forty-four percent of millennials surveyed indicated that when using “self-service mobile tools,” it was actually the follow-up contact with their advisors that determined whether they would stay with a firm or switch to another. Regular personal communication between advisors and clients lowered the likelihood that millennials would switch firms to just 17 percent.
While the mobile apps and digital platforms are useful, they don’t replace the human interaction millennials want from their advisor. According to the findings, 31 percent of emerging affluent millennials with more than $100,000 in investments said they wanted more personal contact with their financial advisors. In contrast, only 7 percent of older investors felt they needed more.
"While our research confirms that a compelling digital experience will help inform investment firm selection and even increase satisfaction scores, real loyalty among millennials [is] much more heavily influenced by frequent communication with an advisor in the context of a goals-based strategy,” Foy added.
Social media, text and video are still effective ways for investors and advisors to connect, but investors said that when they sought advice and guidance from a call center representative or a mobile app, the client-advisor contact was too limited. Of those investors surveyed, approximately 10 percent used social media, 7 percent used texting and 5 percent used a video chat option to get account information from their advisors.
Emerging affluent investors have a greater demand for interaction with their advisors than other groups do.
The study also revealed that millennials averaged 4.5 advisor contacts per year while older investors had only 3.6. The latter may feel that they have already established a strong relationship with their financial advisors.
Younger investors are a flight risk and are four times more likely than other generations to switch their advisory firms, the study said. Twenty-nine percent of millennial investors surveyed said they would consider leaving their current firm in the next year while only 4 percent of older investors said so.