How are tech-boosted advisors spending their "time tax refund"?

Whether it's data entry, determining post-meeting action items, or reconciling different sources of data, there are countless little annoyances that, added up, can eat up a significant chunk of time in advisors' days.

But with more AI-based technology arriving on the scene, advisors in the RIA space have an opportunity to get back some of those hours. And according to two C-level leaders speaking to InvestmentNews, some of their newest tech integrations are already starting to pay dividends.

"A big project that we're working on is building a data lake, a unified data platform that serves as a single source of truth," says Joe McQuaid, COO of Concurrent Investment Advisors. "And really it's in preparation for placing AI on top of all our data ... across the Concurrent tech stack and ecosystem."

The most immediate payoff from the data integration project, McQuaid says, has been the ability to educate and train advisors at Concurrent. He says the firm currently has a chatbot-like tool, which is designed to answer advisors' questions about the different tools the firm has, how to use those tools, and the process of changing billing details on client accounts, among other basic queries.

Concurrent also recently introduced Zocks, an AI notetaker, to many of its teams. Aside from recording meeting notes, he says the tool is directly linked to the firm's CRM, which allows it to assign tasks, action items, and updates from meetings quickly for advisors to work on.

Melissa Reaktenwalt, founder and CEO of EViE Financial Group, says her firm selected Jump as its preferred notetaker at the beginning of this year. 

"[We chose it] because it's built specifically for financial advisors, but also because the integration and setup was so smooth and easy," Raektenwalt says. "It does all of the notetaking tasks and compiles those notes ... [then] takes care of the client follow-up and task assignments, all of the things that we were doing fairly manually, and then forcing those into our CRM."

There were some early speed bumps on the road to efficiency, she says, as they initially had to parse through numerous errors coming from the software. But after spending several weeks understanding how the platform works and working out how it interprets the data it's fed, the initial work is now paying off.

"It's saved both myself as a lead advisor and our other advisors probably two to three hours a day just on those tasks, based on the volume of people that we see," she says. "It has been really helpful in reducing the amount of errors that we have, because we're not jumping from one meeting to the next and missing some of the notes."

At Concurrent, McQuaid says advisor teams are also starting to utilize more of the AI tools available via Practifi, the firm's CRM solution. That includes a custom workflow builder, which he says has been crucial in helping achieve efficiencies based on client segmentation. 

"We've been working very closely with our teams on segmentation, then we're also building workflows that that meet the segmentation of that particular advisor," he says. "Platinum clients will have five or six different definable workflows that are built into the system, compared to C-level clients who may have two or three workflows."

With the recent technology enhancements – along with the support the firm provides – McQuaid says advisors across Concurrent's 76-team network are reporting they've gotten back several hours of time in their workweek.

"The teams that are utilizing the services and the technology that's available are actually growing organically faster than the ones that are not," he says. "You see a direct correlation of them going out and identifying either new prospects, finding new assets amongst their existing clients, or in some cases, just simply offering additional services because of the time that they have saved."

At EViE Financial Group, Reaktenwalt says having more time in the day gives her advisor team members a chance to mentally reset between meetings, which means they're less stressed and more present for the next client conversation.

"For me as a firm owner, it's presented an opportunity to look at staffing and to look at costs of personnel, and to look at what we can streamline a little bit more," she says. "What do we need to do to improve efficiency? How do we serve our clients in a better way?" 

Looking ahead, McQuaid says the next efficient frontier for Concurrent will come when they're able to implement predictive analytics. Once Concurrent's data lake is fully built, he says planning-oriented advisors at the firm will be better equipped to consider the different facets of their clients' financial situation.

"You can look at planning for their children, for example, how much money they have in their 529 plans, or the types of insurance policies they might need based on their where they are in this cycle of their lives," he says. "It takes a lot of time to look at your client, their entire big picture ... you can save countless hours on using all of that data and to be able to utilize predictive analytics."

Meanwhile, Reaktenwalt says her team is considering different solutions to help streamline their investment management, specifically on research and due diligence. They're also actively searching for a technology solution for more efficient scheduling.

"We haven't found that yet, but I can imagine that would be a time saving tool if we're able to find the right one," she says.