Advisers who up the ante with tech have bigger books of business

Advisers who take advantage of technology tools — anything from video conferencing software to all the features of a customer relationship management program — have bigger books of business and a more expansive reach to multigenerational clients, a Fidelity Investments study found. Those advisers, who the study referred to as eAdvisors, had almost 40% more assets under management and were pairing up with more Generation X and Y clients. “Advisers are realizing how important technology is becoming and really permeating all different types of work in the office,” said Tricia Haskins, vice president of practice management and consulting at Fidelity Clearing and Custody. There were six key categories of technology usage that eAdvisors excelled at, including reaching out to clients and prospects through social media, emails and text messages and using tablets and mobile devices to work with clients. About 75% of these advisers used tablets to view client information, compared with the 23% of advisers not including in this category. Automated workflows with esignatures and other software was another component of the study findings — 80% of eAdvisors said they use streamlined technology, compared 24% of their less technically savvy peers. Showing their clients their whole financial pictures was on the list, including data aggregation and interactive reports; 81% of eAdvisors provide this type of platform for their clients, compared with 47% of the rest of the advisers in the study. Eight in 10 eAdvisors use software to track client interactions, as opposed to the less than half of typical advisers. Ms. Haskins said perhaps one of the biggest areas for advisers to excel in, however, was giving clients access to their information online. Almost all of eAdvisors did this with electronic statements and reports, versus 72% of typical advisers. She said some advisers may not use many technology tools because they can be too much to handle. “There are different types of systems, and also a number of different solutions within those categories, so sorting through it all is a challenge,” she said. “As an adviser, to figure out the right system for your particular business needs, that can be overwhelming for folks.”