Edward Jones is gearing up for the national roll out of its latest tech investment, Edward Jones Match, a web-based application matching prospective clients with financial advisers based on each others’ personality traits.
The tool dives deeper into the matchmaking process than just pairing an investor client with an adviser based on location and the language they speak. The broker-dealer designed the interface to mimic popular dating apps like Tinder and Bumble, according to Ilan Davidovici, principal of client experience at Edward Jones.
The web-based application works by prompting users to take an online quiz to gauge their financial planning interests while asking questions on their priorities like living a healthy lifestyle or paying for education. After the quiz, clients can also review the advisers they match with and see the advisers that matches the communities they identify with.
“If an investor wants an adviser who is a part of their local community, works with business owners or is simply into traveling the world, the application will connect them,” Davidovici said. “It’s quite literally like a great dating app.”
Once the investor and adviser match — the adviser has 24 hours to connect with the client that they’ve been matched with. “We found that if we give clients three financial advisers that match, they’ll typically reach out to two of them, and they’ll end up selecting one,” Davidovici said. “This is simply a new client acquisition strategy for us.”
Edward Jones Match also encourages advisers to leverage more of their personality to strengthen their digital prospecting strategies, according to Davidovici. Edward Jones is currently piloting the tools with adviser groups in Houston and New York.
Edward Jones is slated to roll out the tool to its network of more than 19,000 advisers in the coming months, Davidovici said.
In addition to the matchmaking tool, Edward Jones has been ramping up its digital prospecting tech stack amid the pandemic with the general availability of other applications, like Starting Point and My Priorities.
Starting Point is a digital questionnaire that gathers basic information from a prospect and, in turn, delivers personalized considerations and information to help them understand the value of a financial adviser. Another online quiz is My Priorities, which is aimed to help prospects understand what they value most, and helps translate those into investment decisions and long-term financial planning.
Reimagined technology tools have been a big trend in recent months — especially at some of the largest wealth managers, like Merrill Lynch, UBS, Wells Fargo and LPL — as the coronavirus pandemic sparked remote work environments with no end in sight. Firms are racing to develop tech tools to keep advisers thriving despite the market volatility.
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