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When clients trust us with their money, they deserve personalized attention and the highest possible quality of service. It’s our responsibility as advisors to leverage every tool at our disposal to deliver an exceptional client experience.
One way to do that is to harness technology to give us a better understanding of clients, use our learnings to serve their needs, and, in turn, continue building their trust.
When it comes to personalization, automation can be one of our most powerful tools.
That might sound paradoxical, but it’s not.
Bain’s survey of automation executives found that automation leaders – those who allocated at least 20 percent of their IT budget to automation – saved an average of 17 percent on tasks that were automated. Early adopters of automation are saving more money than those who are slower to automate. And as this technology becomes increasingly integrated, laggards may find themselves unable to compete.
The other side of the equation is clients and what they think of personalization.
McKinsey’s research reveals that 71 percent of consumers expect personalized interactions, and 76 percent of those are disappointed when they don’t get them. They’re even willing to provide more information to get a personalized experience. In terms of specifics, the people surveyed say they want these benefits from personalization:
- Empathy;
- Relevant recommendations and advice they wouldn’t have thought of themselves;
- Reminders of important information they might otherwise forget; and
- Seamless integration across platforms.
What they don’t want is anything that seems overly familiar. There’s a fine line between bespoke client communications and something that crosses into “creepy” territory.
A looming question is whether automation is at odds with personalization.
Spoiler alert: It isn’t.
Melding automation with personalization
In fact, automation makes personalization on a large scale possible because it streamlines tasks, freeing up advisors to spend more time catering services to their individual clients.
What’s the key to effective personalization?
It starts with having the right data and the right tech. Your data won’t help you if it’s not organized and manipulable – and tech won’t help if you don’t have data to make it work. Advisors can leverage automation and AI to improve the client experience across the board.
McKinsey has identified AI-enabled customer service as the next frontier in customer engagement. Today’s consumers are increasingly comfortable with AI-driven interactions. But that doesn’t mean you need to put AI at the center of your personalization efforts – at least, not in a way that’s obvious to your clients.
Instead, look at AI as a tool for personalization and as a tool to make room for personalization.
Deploying AI can help you automate tasks that eat into the time you have available to spend with clients, such as appointment scheduling, portfolio reporting, or compliance monitoring. When routine tasks are taken off your plate, you can spend more time talking to clients and learning relevant information about their lives.
Is your client having a baby? Are they looking to downsize their home? Have they decided to retire early? These things impact how you service your clients.
The data you collect, whether it’s from personal conversations or a client survey, can then be leveraged to create automations and personalization. That could be event-triggered communications or interactive financial health check-ups.
Putting gathered data to use
Still, data needs direction – and it may take some experimenting and iteration to personalize content and services effectively. Client feedback is important regardless of how you use automation. After all, your clients are the ultimate arbiters of what they like and don’t like. You can’t decide that for them.
McKinsey points out that consumers have increasingly high expectations for automation and AI-driven interactions. Those expectations were on the rise even before Covid-19, and they’re higher now. With robust data and careful testing, automation can, as McKinsey says, bring back the human touch, as counterintuitive as that might seem.
Think about your clients and what they need. Then collect the data necessary to bring automation and personalization together into a seamless client experience.
But remember, personalization can’t be a “set it and forget it” task for you. Your data must be updated with relevant client information. For example, when you learn that a client is expecting their first child, use that data point to create personalized recommendations about how to maximize college savings starting now.
Your clients will have feedback for you. Seek it out. What they tell you will inform the next iteration of client personalization.
Automation can’t replace the work we do. What it can do is make us better advocates and advisors for our clients and improve the client experience to make it easier for us to build trust and loyalty.
Matt Reiner is a CFA, CFP®, and partner at Capital Investment Advisors, a $2.8+ billion RIA in Atlanta. Reiner is also CEO of Wela Strategies, a sister company to Capital Investment Advisors, and is the founder and CEO of Benjamin™. Benjamin is an AI technology created by Reiner after seeing the gaps in technology used in his own firm. Reiner’s true passion is using his vast experience to coach other advisors across the country, helping them evaluate their firms’ practices and find the best strategies for future success. To reach Matt Reiner, visit www.MattReiner.com.
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Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
