Maintaining client connection with digital tools

April 09, 2020 by Shawn Bosman

Maintaining client connection with digital tools by Advicent

About the author

Shawn Bosman

Account executive

Shawn Bosman is an account executive at Advicent, the financial planning technology provider of choice for nearly 100,000 financial professionals.

It is simple to see the impacts of COVID-19 on today’s market at large. We probably will not be in self-quarantine forever, but we will be dealing with the consequences for the foreseeable future. Sometimes markets are disrupted by innovation. Sometimes they are disrupted by necessity. Either way, advisors who embrace the disruption come out ahead in the long term.

COVID-19 will undoubtedly change our best practices going forward and the planners who embrace those changes now will be ahead of the curve. Advisors can utilize digital tools to stay connected with their clients and keep their clients connected with their advice.

Advice remains the center of the advisor value proposition and staying connected by wrapping that advisor in tech is the clearest way to outlast current market conditions and outperform them in the future.

So how can we deliver the advice that clients have come to rely upon and foster relationships from allegorical arm’s length?

Conventional distance-communication media have quickly become the norm – email, texting and calling clients will get lost in the noise. A more personal touch could come from a “face-to-face” meeting via FaceTime, WebEx or Zoom.

But once you have got them on the webcam or a phone call, what do you discuss? What do you do for the folks in your book of business who are not digital natives?

That is where NaviPlan excels.

Whether you are on a FaceTime call with a millennial emerging affluent or emailing a legacy client well into retirement, NaviPlan provides you with the flexibility and scalability to tailor presentations to the audience in front of you.

Here are some of the digital tools in the NaviPlan platform to help keep your client connections strong.

Client portal

Client portals to give an interactive feel of ownership to your plan, and when people feel that sense of connection, they also feel a sense of ownership. Under current market conditions, a lot of people are “pajama planning,” or considering their finances before or after normal business hours.

The advisor who allows them access and tweak their plan whenever it comes to mind contributes to that sense of ownership of the plan, demonstrates their value, and additionally, adds an exit barrier.

Remotely connect with clients and deliver engaging advice.

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Needs analysis

Visual retirement needs analysis inspires “what if” or “how do I” discussions and gives advisors unique opportunities to add their input and keep advice at the center of the planning relationship.
Encouraging clients to ask questions and driving engagement further pushes the feel of ownership and connection to the plan, with your planning advice being the integral other half. Uncover unique needs, future goals, and develop a holistic plan that fits.

With NaviPlan Guided Retirement, advisors can kickstart the planning conversation with prospects and clients who may be feeling the stresses of market volatility. Additionally, the assessment presents information in an engaging, visual format that is great for showcasing on a screen-share to investors at home.

Client report customization

The ability to customize reports to emphasize your unique value throughout a financial plan is essential, especially in these times where clients likely have a very specific set of concerns. An advisor who can clearly communicate their value and the difference their plan has made in an interactive setting will be in a position to become a single trusted source for financial advice. This is made possible through the NaviPlan Client Report Editor.

Further, customizing advice to the unique needs of your clients can help strengthen the personal connection in the client-advisor relationship, which according to the 2018 World Wealth Report from Capgemini, remains a chief strategy to increase client satisfaction with a financial plan – even more so than robust investment returns.

Connectedness through the strategies outlined above is important and will undoubtedly augment your practice’s bottom line. When you couple the unique capabilities of NaviPlan with a great distance-communication strategy, advisors are equipped to overcome challenges like COVID-19 in the near term, but obstacles in the future like lengthy vacations, long-distance moves, or changes in life circumstances like a new child or change of work.

In this whitepaper, learn how FinTech can be implemented to solve the biggest pain points facing advisors in the areas of client engagement, advice delivery, and scaling advice complexity.