The key to digital success lies in providing the benefits of an offline experience in an online environment. Wealth managers know their clients and the digital experience has to convey this in a deeply personal way, while offering them the functionality they need and responding to their needs.

Retaining clients has always been a vital issue for the wealth management sector. How the digital technology that is used today affects client retention is a subject that also needs to be addressed. To do that is Yaela Shamberg chief product officer at InvestCloud. The editors here are pleased to share these insights and invite replies. Remember, the usual editorial disclaimers apply. To comment, email tom.burroughes@wealthbriefing.com and jackie.bennion@clearviewpublishing.com

In times of fee compression and economic uncertainty, how can you retain your client base? This is a question facing many wealth managers in today’s market conditions. 

We all know that good wealth management is not just forecasting and reporting. It is also about the personal relationship between client and advisor - understanding the unique needs of the individual and creating a plan to fulfil those. 

This current moment of social distancing and remote working has created challenges to building on these intimate and personal relationships. We know that digital technology can massively help to bridge this – but how can it be used to greater effect? Here are some answers to questions on digital matters that we hear frequently. 

How do I create better relationships?
Short answer: Integrate everything - communications, advice, trading and reporting. Make it informed. Make it smarter.

Good digital means better engagement. It empowers wealth managers and advisors to build and maintain strong client relationships, tailored for specific client audiences. To do this well requires providing the right tools for better client engagement. This includes a portal where they can view their entire wealth in one place, receive content relevant to them, ask questions on aspects of their portfolio, store life's important documents and build on their financial understanding. This is all delivered through cloud-based apps, accessible at any time, any place and through any device.

Good digital prevents wealth management from being commodified, and instead it creates a partnership between the advisor and client. Enhanced digital experiences must be your strategy. But remember, it’s not simply about getting your services online, it’s about creating a smarter experience for both the advisor and the investor.

What do clients want from digital?
Clients want a digital experience that is intuitive to use, that involves them in all aspects of their wealth, provides them with optionality and is personal. They want an experience that echoes other areas of their digital lives. 

This means that wealth managers need to look beyond their own sector to understand how clients view digital. What are the features that make social media sites so popular? How does an e-commerce site’s design impact the client purchasing journey? 

To achieve this, wealth firms need to find their digital “North Star” - what they need their digital offering to do and how they achieve this. This could be an online conversion of the complete brick and mortar experience, or a fundamental redesign in order to attract a more diverse range of new clients. 

Finding the North Star comprises two parts. The first, a design study to understand what you and your clients want, and then, second, a functional study to understand the needed features. This forms the backbone of creating a digital experience. Everything should be implemented to achieve this North Star. If done correctly this is how you ultimately delight clients, offering them value digitally and retaining them for good.

What do I need to develop personal experiences?
Wealth managers already know how to offer a personalised service. It’s the basis of the business model. This needs to be translated online.

The key to this is developing a series of digital personas to ensure that the online experience can be segmented to suit certain demographics. This could consider the basics - age, gender, location, amount of assets - but the best personas expand this further to consider goals, interests and digital savviness.

For wealth managers, this means that you need to speak your client’s language. When they log on, clients should instantly see what they value, communicated in the way that they prefer to consume that information. For example, if they value content more than charts, then all news or investment ideas should be completely tailored to their situation, holdings and interests to ensure engagement. 

The aim of complete personalisation is to take the hard work away from clients and keep them close to you. If they are after the latest financial news, make sure your platform offers that - keeping them logged in and engaged for longer. This is crucial for ensuring higher engagement.
 

How do I understand my client’s needs better?
The key lies in data. A good digital experience will have a true digital warehouse at its heart - a single version of the integrated truth for all data that powers all functions in real time. By having all the data together - whether it is accounts, performance, CRM, curated content, client preferences, etc. - the advisor can finally offer clients a fitting, meaningful and evolving persona.  

The advisor should also be able to see how their clients use the system, what they look at and what content and topics are front of mind. Every action on a digital platform is recorded and measured, giving critical insight into what your clients are looking at and when. An advisor can use this to refine the platform experience further - but also to anticipate needs in advance.

Say a client, or group of clients, is researching environmental, social and governance investment news on the platform, an advisor can use this as a conversation starter that can lead to a greater share of assets being passed on to the firm. It’s a new business opportunity that doesn’t just sell, but delights clients in the process.  
 
The process of monitoring can be automated, meaning that an advisor doesn’t spend days trawling through data. They just need to identify the opportunities to add value and ensure that the digital platform is used to keep conversations going. 

How do I keep people engaged and interested in my digital platform?

A digital platform must be sticky - clients should continuously return to ensure it’s a worthwhile investment for the firm. 

But the digital space is a crowded and competitive place. Here, a wealth manager isn’t just competing against other financial providers used by a client. It is also competing against news media, social media, e-commerce and entertainment platforms.

So how do you compete with Facebook and Netflix for the attention of your clients? You use the same techniques they do to keep people coming back.

Gamification sounds complicated at face value, but it’s really quite intuitive. In essence, it is a series of processes which encourage people to come back and stay active. For example - use push notifications to develop a sense of timeliness and importance. Create a levelling system or progression that rewards clients who spend time filling out all required information. Develop communities of clients to drive interactions.

If gamification keeps clients engaged, behavioural science can help encourage certain actions. We know that during a downturn, clients can fixate on negative numbers. The digital platform can help anchor clients to the plan by setting certain numbers in their mind, while also overcoming availability bias of information by placing it within context. For clients who are less financially literate, the platform can help educate them and improve confidence. 

Intuitive, involved, individual
Digital transformation can be a daunting prospect, but today’s client expects digital. They want to engage digitally as much as they do over the phone or in person, if not more. 

The key to digital success lies in providing the benefits of an offline experience in an online environment. Wealth managers know their clients and the digital experience has to convey this in a deeply personal way, while offering them the functionality they need and responding to their needs. In short, it needs to be intuitive, involved and individualised.  

Use this as your North Star, and the first steps of a digital offering should fall into place. This ensures that clients don’t just stay with you - but engage with you.