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Client Portals: Build the Ultimate Client Experience
The Investment News Advisor Technological Survey found that the best performing and most innovative advisory firms took a technology-centric view of implementing their client’s experience. With the vast majority of investors online and using the web to communicate and access insightful content on the financial markets, technological innovation in this industry has spiked to provide accommodating solutions. As investor behavior changes, so do their experience, moving from a more traditional to an online medium. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the industry to adapt how they deliver that experience to their clients.
What is a client portal?
One example of how the industry has utilized technology to evolve with changing investor behavior is client portals.
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78% of firms use clients portals*
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21% of clients use it once a week*
- 35% of clients use it once a month*
Client portals are private communication networks, where advisors can share, distribute and archive financial information and insights with their investors. Often, the client portals are embedded into the advisor's sites and are custom configurable, designed to sync with the advisors branding, messaging and color scheme. For example, Vosterra is a client portal solution offered by Harvest Exchange.
One key aspect of most client portals is that it allows for compliant communication from the advisor to the investor. For this reason (and many others), there is a high adoption rate of client portals by advisory firms and a significant usage rate among investors.
The importance of having a client portal
Out with the old in with the new.
Sophisticated CRM systems have replaced the traditional methods of communication between advisors and their clients; emails blasts and BCC's are a thing of the past. The likes of Hubspot and Salesforce have revolutionized the way we communicate in the business world, and this tailored approach to interacting with your clients has been a driving force for the formation of client portals. Even such, that at Harvest we made our own client portal solution,
Vosterra
, integrate with both Hubspot and Salesforce. That way advisors can send secure communications to segmented investor lists with ease and efficiency. No more having to scroll through spreadsheets to segment your email list.
Secure and compliant communication is critical.
Often the documents and files being shared and archived on the portal carry highly sensitive and confidential information. Traditional sharing of these files over an email, CD or USB stick exposed the client to a security breach. Client portals, such as Vosterra, supply a secure exchange for document sharing between advisors and their clients, allowing for compliant communication.
A tailored approach.
The custom-configurable nature of these client portals allows the advisor to craft the best experience for their clients. Building for client experience, the advisors can consider branding efforts, UI & UX changes and messaging to suit the functional and aesthetic needs of their clients. A great client portal will focus not just on the solutions but on how the client interacts with the software.
Data-rich. Lastly, following on from how a client interacts, client portals have one function that matters above all: rich, first-party client data. The data is captured through the many exchanges between an advisor and their client or prospects (client portals are also a success for prospecting). Analysis of that data can help improve every aspect of the client experience, from the cadence of the communications to the insights shared with the client.
Overall, these client portals are built to deliver a better client experience, leading to client success, ultimately increasing retention rates and margins for the advisor. Financial advisors looking to lead in client experience should consider implementing a client portal to aid in lead prospecting and secure client communications.
Author: Ahmed Rosowsky
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* Investment News Research, 2017 InvstmentNews adviser technology study, Investment News, March 2017, https://www.investmentnews.com/dcce/20170320/4/4/wp_research/3448563