The initial onslaught of Covid-19 saw a period of necessitated change. Wealth managers were in survival mode and moved swiftly to shore up their client service, internal processes and functionality and upgrade their technology accordingly. For the most part, they were successful.

But we have now moved into the second stage. Vaccination programs mean the end is in sight for the fire-fighting part of Covid-19 and advisors now have a bit of white space to consider how they can best build upon their offering going forward.

The key question is: how can they best move a remote offering that works and does its job, into the realm of the client-centric, differentiated experience? Advisors need to use this time period as an opportunity to explore where to go next. They need to define their aims and then build the processes and IT stacks around that to create a new ecosystem that can offer hyper-customized advice, customer-centric processes and communications to clients. They also need to be able to meet the needs of advisors in terms of efficiency of process, data and information gathering and intelligent servicing capability.

As an example, we could take virtual meetings. While it is easy to suppose that virtual meetings were just a temporary thing that needed to happen to keep the business running and might continue to be a convenience, we could instead say how it became much easier to get all family members together at the same time. It’s also been easier to make contact briefly to advise clients or have a short discussion - and that makes for better client engagement. Moving that along means considering how to leverage virtual meetings to be more client-centric; becoming the essential advisor with a more authentic and available relationship. Ultimately that increases wallet share, promotes recommendations and so creates new clients. It makes overall better business sense.

The onus is now on thriving remotely not surviving remotely.

Indeed, it is easy to forget that all things that Covid-19 brought into the spotlight technology-wise have long since been possible, Covid-19 dragged digitalization into the realm of the everyday necessity and made it not only acceptable but a must-have. Enhanced, value-added digitalized tech stacks that differentiate the advisor will be the name of the game going forward.

This will require a big change in mindset, all the more so when you consider that the average advisor is over 60 years of age.

Advisors now need to be actively looking to come to the table and make an investment- so that they can survive and thrive into the future by meeting and exceeding customers’ needs and expectations. This is not about a straight return on investment, it is about the cost of doing nothingthe return on inertia. The temptation is to look only at the cost of a new piece of software and whether the benefits that it will bring will outweigh them. There is also the implementation and maintenance regime to consider. The fear of the cost of technology in terms of time and money that technological innovation can act as a major disincentive.

But instead, consider what is the cost of doing nothing? Grappling with outdated systems that cannot be truly customer-centric or offer hyperpersonalization or indeed meet even the basic expectations of customers going forward is costly in another way – eventually rendering the advisor obsolete. What is the cost of this inertia?

Solution Providers
Providers have their part to play in this too. Things have moved on from advisors wanting to partner with a single provider and have a turnkey tech stack. Instead, the market has very much evolved into one of ecosystems and components that include several best of breed providers. A advisor going out and creating its own ecosystem is confusing at best and impossible to do cohesively at worst.

Thus, providers need to work to form part of an essential ecosystem and have strategic partnerships with other providers so that the end client has a choice. They also need to be knowledgeable about the providers that they partner with so as to offer a best fit solution to a range of client types.

Through an offering that is cognizant, coherent and centric to the needs of the customer, providers can offer something that is hyperpersonalized and customer-centric. The importance of crisp, clear messaging from providers on the pain points they solve for clients also needs to come to the fore.

In the US this is likely to become easier to do as a result of the SEC marketing rule which now allows for testimonials to be shared. So if the experience of clients is not good then their testimonials will be visibly and notably lacking. Clients will now expect to see positive testimonials covering the solution, the integration and the ongoing service.

Ultimately the shopping experience needs to be better for the advisors. What will come next is the success of those who make the right alliances to make the lives of advisors easier, not just in terms of the functionality and user experience, but also in terms of how they help buyers to find their way and the level of service they can offer.

Advisors meanwhile need to recognize they now need to give some serious thought to the type of business they want to be. Now is the right time to look at how things have changed, what worked, what has not worked and then looking to see how the long term business model should look. Providers should be ready to meet that need.

This article is originally from our US Wealth Technology Landscape Report 2021. Access the full report here.