Transforming Customer Experience in Wealth Management Requires Walking an Extra Mile

Wealth management has oft been regarded as an elite sector of banking, however, as financial institutions step into the 21^st century by focusing on implementing new-age technologies, it sometimes seems that delivering a superior experience to high net worth investors has taken a back seat.

What makes me say so?

Imagine, for example, that Mr. WIlliams, a CEO of a private company, is an elite customer of XYZ Investment Company and relies heavily on his wealth manager, Andy. Mr. Williams chose this investment firm for its great network of relationship managers and talented investment advisors.

On Friday evening, Mr. Williams called his investment manager, Andy, to request a portfolio report analyzing tax information throughout the year for tax optimization and planning purposes. He requested this report on a deadline of two days.

Andy called his colleague, Mark, in the back office, to check if they already have a template ready for such a report, but Mark replied that the team would have to create a brand new report from scratch after collating data from a number of different systems—this process would take weeks of effort. The result? Despite having a great reputation and investing significantly in customer-facing systems, XYZ Investment Company still cannot provide the required communication to their clients, thereby bringing down their overall customer experience.

Bridging the gap

This disconnect stems from the inability of many wealth management firms to adopt a wider repertoire of communication styles and a broad technological toolkit. Instead, wealth managers often fall into the trap of prioritizing the previously successful face-to-face financial advising strategy. Communication is the bedrock of any wealth management business and customers expect top tier communication, including personalized content that is delivered on a range of platforms and interfaces.

The way forward for wealth management firms seems to be embracing and prioritizing customer experience by employing advanced communication technologies and seeking more innovative approaches to delivering tailored, content-rich communication to their clients.

Right Communication Strategy Goes a Long Way in Delivering a Superior Customer Experience

• Deliver tailored and insightful portfolio reports

Customers expect many types of reports (portfolio, market performance, analysis chart, etc.) to help them make informed investment decisions. The content of these reports requires data collation from various systems and visual representation through charts and graphs for tangible and applicable insights.

Wealth management firms must commit to making these types of reports available, based on a repository of templates, with a low turnaround time after the request. Further, these complex reports should be personalized and delivered on a regular basis, beyond in response to on-demand requests.

• Enable wealth managers to deliver great customer service

Historically, customer service in the wealth management industry has come in the form of face-to-face meetings and advisement. While these conventions are still valuable, wealth managers would be remiss to discount the value of digital communications delivered across many touchpoints using advanced communication technologies.

As the world of financial services progresses, wealth management too must progress and invest in smart, data-driven customer engagement based upon the delivery of personalized and empowering content.

• Aim for more than customer satisfaction

Improved customer experiences, especially through effective communication, heighten customer engagement significantly, thereby generating more business and revenue. The main challenge facing wealth management firms is how to go beyond basic customer satisfaction and build interactive and visually appealing communications.

Wealth management firms should rely on customer communication management (CCM) tools which enable them to deliver rich media content, ranging from personalized, advisory videos, to interactive HTML-based portfolios communications. This content should be device-friendly and connected across multiple platforms and interfaces, allowing customers to access insights when and wherever they prefer.

This investment into a connected customer journey is one of the main differentiating factors into which wealth management firms can invest. Every touchpoint along the customer journey is important, and streamlining the customer journey, while ensuring constant and connected communication throughout, is the way to surpass customer expectations every time.

The path to top-tier customer experience

For wealth management firms to deliver the best-in-class customer experiences, they must invest in the appropriate tools, thereby empowering their wealth managers to make the shift towards a customer-centric approach.

An omnichannel CCM involves a streamlined and integrated approach to delivering all outbound, customer-facing communications—from email marketing to bill and payment notifications to personalized reports generation.

This ecosystem of new tools, incorporating technologies from artificial intelligence to data analytics and omnichannel customer engagement strategies, will inevitably empower wealth managers, thereby enabling them to deliver a great customer experience.