Wealth managers have talked about “personalization” and “client-centricity” for years. But is that actually how clients feel about the service they receive, or does it sound to them like more marketing speak?
Unless you actually engage with clients in a way that shows you understand their unique position and needs, the answer is probably the latter. The occasional check-in meeting or behind the scenes tweaking of some retirement investment won’t cut it in today’s hyper-competitive wealth management industry, where as products and services get more commoditized, the relationship and service an advisor provides is the key differentiator.
This is especially true as we emerge from the COVID pandemic, which took away many of the relationship tools advisors traditionally relied upon while simultaneously making clients more comfortable with digital experiences. Advisors needed to up their technology-powered game while emphasizing the things an advisor excels at: knowing clients as individuals, delivering personalized insights proactively, and offering solutions the client couldn’t find on their own.
To do this at scale, advisors needed to turn to technology, particularly next-generation CRM systems that provide more than a place to store notes and plug in some calendar reminders. Powered by advanced analytics and able to draw insights from multiple disparate data sources using AI and related approaches, these enhanced client engagement tools help advisors anticipate client needs, build a more accurate picture of how they are progressing, recommend action, and keep vital information close at hand.
Why does this matter? In its 2021 XCelent Awards report evaluating wealth management CRM, Celent notes: “Differentiated client experiences that improve meaningful advisor engagement, automate onboarding processes, and facilitate hyper-personalization—especially through the application of AI—are critically important.”
This is precisely the role of NexJ’s Nudge-AI suite of products, which provide unique windows and draw value-adding insights from multiple data sources. The programming and learning that drives these products is tailored to the financial industry and gives advisors help they can use immediately to create deeper engagement.
Our Engage product sifts through client information and external data to recommend next best actions so the advisor will come forward with the right solution at the right time; Inform helps surface news, research and content a client will find valuable; while Insights delves into client information – including unstructured data like emails and meeting notes – to identify life events and sentiment that an advisor can speak to with timely opportunities.
These abilities are why Celent awarded NexJ the highest Advanced Technology score among all the wealth management CRM platforms they evaluated, and why we are confident we can help firms and advisors “reduce overhead and friction associated with ongoing client management and ultimately drive internal efficiency,” which Celent sees as the key benefit of wealth management CRM.
To learn more about the state of wealth management CRM and how NexJ delivers what advisors need today, you can download Celent's report here.
