Smart phones will enrich client relationships

Smart phones are seemingly ubiquitous now, but just wait. By 2013, there are expected to be more smart phones than PCs or laptops. Because of advancements in technology, power and innovation, these phones will offer much more intelligence and will bring massive change.
For advisers, these changes will come in the form of a movement from “point solutions,” which serve specific roles, to more integrated solutions, which will combine information and functionality from several different systems into one powerful application.
As a point solution, consider what Thomson Reuters, one of our clients, has done with Thomson One Mobile. The service is a collection of streaming data, news feeds and portfolio management tools that the company delivers free to its clients. Advisers can set performance alerts, grab breaking stories and earnings announcements, view quotes and charts, and see a synopsis of world capital markets from their mobile devices.

CRM ON THE RUN

Another client, Redtail Technology Inc., which specializes in customer relationship management software, has launched a mobile version of its system that enables advisers to view all their information in work flows specifically designed for mobile devices. Users can do just about everything now done on a computer, including managing their schedule, viewing client records, adding notes and new contacts, and receiving alerts.
Several broker-dealers are making key CRM capabilities available on mobile phones so advisers can access important customer and calendar information when they’re in the field. This creates operational efficiencies for their advisers, frees up time for office staff members and enables advisers to spend more time with clients.
As integrated solutions become more commonplace over the next few years, financial advisers will be able to see account, CRM and custodial data, and combine that information with real-time news feeds, quotes and market information. In addition, they will be able to read news or schedule meetings, trade stocks, manage accounts and transfer money, as well as grab a digital signature and incorporate it into a document or client record, giving advisers the ability to have a truly paperless office.
Current mobile applications in retail financial services generally are targeted to consumers and involve banking and online trading. Financial advisory firms haven’t jumped aboard yet, because the conventional applications are in conflict with the financial advising model, which emphasizes the importance of communication between the adviser and the client. Today’s applications deliver information that the customer receives in a vacuum, without any connection to the adviser; the messages don’t enhance adviser-client communications.
But that is about to change. The next generation of mobile applications for financial advisers will reconcile this conflict by connecting the adviser and the investor. In the future, clients who know and trust their financial adviser but only see him or her just once or twice a year will have an application on their smart phone that they will see several times a day, reminding them regularly about their adviser. Though they may open that application just weekly or monthly, the application icon will serve as an extension of the adviser’s brand, providing a gateway to valuable information and convenient functionality — including checking account balances, market information, newspaper and magazine articles, and even interaccount money transfers.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

The new tools also will permit financial advisers to add photos, contact numbers/e-mail addresses, and office and staff information to their mobile content, making everything easily accessible for clients. But the most important additions will come in interactivity. Advisers will be able to push information out to clients — educational material, activity updates, reminders, calendar access — and receive their clients’ feedback.
Most of the technology for all of this is available today. What’s needed is an expanded way of thinking about how mobile technology can help financial advisers do their job more effectively and strengthen their ties to clients.
Since integrated mobile applications will establish the adviser’s brand as a constant presence on the mobile device and the adviser as a constant presence within that application, the adviser must decide what that brand and what those messages will be.

André Guillemin is senior manager of industry marketing at Pyxis Mobile Inc.