They must rethink technology because to this digital generation, everything occurs in real time. These five major actions can help wealth firms and their advisors generate that millennial-proof strategy:
• The Future Foundation: Ensure that your firm’s systems pull together content and data from internal and external sources and perform the strategic analytics necessary to serve customers and market to prospects. This project can require more than a year.
• Make it Personal: Leverage data and analytics to tailor all marketing and customer relationship efforts to to each millennial and his or her specific tastes and interests. This lets advisors hit every touchpoint, including content and messaging relevant to the customer’s life and financial situation.
• Technology, Technology, Technology: Build the most innovative technology platform available for every aspect of the business with analytics serving as its foundation. The technology should apply to social, mobile and cloud platforms as well as 24/7 customer portals. Embrace such innovations as virtual reality, artificial intelligence and blockchain. Partner with a fintech firm to keep up with tech breakthroughs and offer the services millennials favor. Advisors should master when to use technology and when to deploy the human touch.
• Be Omni-channel: Rapidly changing communication channels make it critical to employ technology that gives advisors flexibility and nimbleness to offer millennials the latest features, functionality and the best overall client experience – anytime, anywhere and via any device. But besides technology, demonstrate that their trusted financial advisory team will be there over the years to provide guidance and advice for them and their families.
• Go “Bionic”: Recognize that robo-advisors are increasingly popular in providing personal financial advisory services. As Broadridge CEO Rich Daly notes, these computer programs that use algorithms to create smart, diversified investment plans are easy to use and inexpensive. But, he emphasizes that good financial counsel depends on elements that robots can overlook such as intellectual capital and an understanding of nuance. He favors a hybrid or “bionic” approach: part robot, part human. Also, add millennials to your advisory teams because these younger counselors can relate more naturally to them and reach out to millennial heirs of client families.
The Broadridge-Roubini ThoughtLab survey offers wealth planners the seven digitally enabled investment tools that at least one-third of surveyed millennials most expect to use over the next five years. They include low-cost online trading platforms; technology-enabled financial planning; customized products and investment services, portfolio risk-management tools and stress testing; improved analytics for tracking performance against goals; automated trading and rebalancing; and access anytime, anywhere on any device.
Looking to the future of personal investment, we must recognize that to reach millennials, a hybrid robo- and human-based system is advisable. Plus, there’s no time to waste. Act immediately to learn the language of these digital natives to attract them and earn their trust. They are the heirs to massive wealth and represent a pathway to the future for the financial advisory industry.
Traci Mabrey is head of wealth solutions at Broadridge Financial Solutions.