If today’s wealth management clients want one thing, it’s personalization. Clients get personalized experiences when they buy groceries, watch streaming shows, and shop online. Why wouldn’t they want a similarly customized experience with their financial advisor?
Firms and advisors that can provide personalization create a competitive advantage. Some reports claim that 73% of customers increasingly expect companies to cater to their individual needs, and 76% become frustrated when they don’t have personalized experiences.
It’s one thing to know that clients want personalized experiences; it’s another to deliver. How can advisors create truly personalized experiences, especially as their firms grow and client needs change? Let’s dive into three steps to provide high-quality personalization at scale.
1) Segment Clients
The first step in creating a personalized experience is to know who you’re working with. Every investor wants to feel like their advisor understands their needs and considerations. The last thing they want is one-size-fits-all communication or recommendations. Segmentation or creating client personas allows advisors to group clients by similarities to send relevant, targeted campaigns and personalized investment recommendations.
How do you segment your clients? Sort within your CRM based on age, geographic location, family situation, or financial goals. Breaking down clients into similar groups helps you deliver personalized marketing and communication. For example, you can reach out to a client segment of people 10 years out from retirement with a specific recommendation. This way, advisors can send personalized emails, text messages, articles, and promotions to customers that fall into a predetermined set of categories.
It’s important to note that segmenting clients is a good first step to personalization, but it is just the basics. True personalization comes from delivering hyper-focused campaigns and communication.
2) Spend Time With Clients
You may have a basic idea of your clients based on their demographics, which helps put them into a client segment. Next, take it a step further by spending time with your clients and learning about their preferences and priorities. Two clients with nearly identical demographics may have vastly different approaches to investing and financial goals. You’ll only know that if you take time to meet with them, ask questions, and build a relationship. Similarly, stay in tune with client feedback about ways they want to interact with your firm. By asking directly how they want to be communicated with and how much personalization they want without being creepy, you can tailor a personalized approach to each person.
As you spend time getting to know your clients, you’ll be able to identify the moments that matter. These are key moments in a person’s life, such as buying a house, having a baby, getting a promotion, or sending a kid to college. Great advisors show up for their clients in those moments and help them prepare financially. It all starts by taking time to talk to them.
3) Leverage AI
A truly personalized experience offers seamless, cohesive touchpoints across all channels throughout the buying process — a process made easier with AI.
At its core, personalization is about data. Today’s firms have an incredible amount of client data available, but sorting through it can be overwhelming. Integrating a tech stack and automated back-office processes can create an AI-enabled powerhouse.
With countless investment models, product options, tax considerations, and more, even the most skilled advisors may find it challenging to wade through the options and find perfectly personalized recommendations for each client. Some experts predict that investors will soon face a personalization overload scenario, where advisors will have to pick from an inventory of more than 1 million managed products. How can advisors sort through all that? With the help of AI. Advisors can leverage tools to develop a customized investment plan without manually having to sort through numerous options.
Personalization starts with strong data management. Docupace is a leader in new account opening and back office success. Click here to learn more and schedule a discovery call.
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