On the surface, RIAs and wealth management firms have one clear-cut job: increase the number of dollar signs attributable to their client accounts. Underneath the obvious ins and outs of offering investment advice and managing portfolios, however, lies a deeper and ultimately more fulfilling purpose: financial empowerment.

Advisers can play a large part in bettering their clients’ financial lives. Helping clients get control over their current state of financial affairs — and actively take part in planning for their future — can be a transformative and, in some cases, life-changing experience.

But how do RIAs help guide clients toward this sense of empowerment? By following some tried and true strategies that strengthen the client-adviser relationship and cultivate trust in the wealth management process. Here are three ways RIAs can empower their clientele.

Get to know your clients’ needs…And then advise accordingly
Like most transactions in the digital era, consumers expect personalised, valuable experiences that speak to their needs and wants. If anything, this creed holds even more true when it comes to wealth management services.

Recent research found that about two-thirds of Americans consider a personalised goal-based financial plan extremely important when selecting financial advisers. Firms that offer the same cookie-cutter investment options to everybody, regardless of age, background, and personal interests, are quickly losing their appeal.

Part of fiduciary duty is acting “in light of the client’s goals, risk tolerance objectives, and financial and personal circumstances.” This information is best obtained via one-on-one adviser-client interactions. Empowerment is a personal experience and means different things to different people. Advisers need to recognise that not all clients have the same expectations.

Some strategies that help promote individual client empowerment include:

• Streamlining onboarding: The easier RIAs can gather client information, the better. Easy questionnaires, clear instructions, and an integrated Cloud-based tool for storing customer data are great ways to collect client data.
• Intentional goal-setting with clients: Identifying pain points and asking specific questions about short- and long-term goals can help RIAs understand how best to meet their clients’ needs.
• Automating repetitive processes: Investing in tools that free up adviser time to focus on building relationships can increase retention and overall client satisfaction.

Putting time into relationship development is the best way advisors can get to know clients and help them make educated, personalised investment decisions.

Keep your client (and your firm) in compliance
A less obvious way of empowering clients is by ensuring their personal and financial information is well-protected against nefarious actors. Digital platforms offer risk management solutions that pull information from a myriad of input sources, identify troublesome behaviour, and then distil it into a dashboard.

Docupace offers 45 types of threat alerts that firms can customise. Creating alerts for specific events and behaviour will save risk management teams precious time manually reviewing each transaction and call attention to the most pressing threats first. Platforms that incorporate artificial intelligence can even predict problems before they arise.

It is difficult for clients to feel heard by advisers when they are not certain their information is safe to begin with. Providing a secure foundation in risk management is one way to cultivate the kind of trust a strong client-adviser relationship needs.

Communicate frequently with your client
Finally, investment personalisation and effective risk management come back to the same core requirement: frequent, honest communication between advisers and their clients. Empowerment cannot happen without the clear sense of trust that clients inherently place in their advisers. And when advisers are stuck pushing paperwork or chasing down compliance issues, they lack the time to effectively cultivate that trust.

From onboarding new clients to identifying security breaches, automated software solutions can take on much of the work to successfully run a wealth management firm. Advisers spend less than 20% of their time meeting with clients, indicating that the very activities that develop crucial advisor-client trust are falling by the wayside.

Although each individual interested in wealth management advice comes into it with different expectations and goals, they ultimately all yearn for control over their finances. Feeling as if they know what the future holds for them and their families — at least when it comes to money — can play an outsized role in personal fulfilment. Unlike consultants in other industries, RIAs can directly impact their clients’ sense of empowerment. Setting up advisers for success in this area is a win for everybody.

For more information on automated, cloud-based client management solutions, contact Docupace today.

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