In the tech savvy world of today, how can the financial services industry keep up with ever increasing client expectations and expanding regulatory environments? More and more, effective solutions require monitoring tech trends and rapid-fire changes.
At the Financial Services Institute (FSI) annual OneVoice conference, Docupace and other industry experts gathered to discuss these evolving trends and their impacts on the world of financial planning. In this blog we summarize the OneVoice 2022 panel: “Addressing End Clients’ Changing Expectations” which included Docupace CEO David Knoch.
Client Expectations Are Changing and What to Do About It
One of the biggest changes in client expectations is that clients no longer want a hands-off approach when it comes to managing their investments. What does this mean for advisors? In the OneVoice panel, Knoch gathered with other industry leaders to discuss how client expectations are shifting and how to best address them.
Technology Means Adopting a More Hands-on Approach
Investors want more support to conduct their own financial investments. One Investor Voice study found that 76% of consumers want the ability to slice performance data in different ways, and 62% want the ability to trade themselves. Having daily access to account information through technology and creating hands-on ways to be involved in the investment process are becoming increasingly important for investors.
Consumers Want a One-stop Shop
Digitization is real, and it’s here. When it comes to managing investments, consumers want one-stop-shop solutions to investing, tax advice and more. Wealth management firms that adopt technologies to improve processes, rather than outsourcing them, the industry will be able to provide a more seamless solution for investors and gain a competitive advantage.
How to Address Change
Regardless of any changes that firms implement, Knoch says there are two things every client looks for in an advisor: trust and competency. While adopting technology is an important step, Knoch reminded attendees that staying focused on building trust and proving competency to clients will pay larger dividends in the future.
Although client expectations are always evolving, firms can keep up by looking to the future. Here are five pieces of advice panelists suggested as ways to stay on top of changing concerns:
- Gather responses from clients frequently to know what they need.
- Communicate expectations up front and in a cadence that the client agrees with (every week, every quarter, etc.).
- Embrace change and be prepared to pivot frequently. Think forward.
- Don’t lose sight of the basics that do work (i.e. building trust, proving competency).
- Ask “what matters to the client?” and don’t lose sight of the answer.
As Docupace CEO David Knoch said, clients notice the friction when backend processes aren’t optimized for their digital reality. After all, we’re no longer in the era of digital transformation so much as the era of digital optimization. Now more than ever, the rapid adoption of technology is changing the financial services industry both in the way that clients expect information and in the way that firms deliver services, disclosures, and more.
