Too many options for CRMs?

Believe it or not, there may be too many options for financial advisers when it comes to customer relationship management software.

Although the CRM vendor space has been around for a while, with smaller companies emerging and older companies expanding with integrations and features, financial advisers have to stop and wonder — which product is the right fit?

Forrester Research recently released a research report on the CRM space. In it, it states CRM companies are bloating the market by offering so many capabilities to the end user. According to the report, 41% of those surveyed have implemented a CRM in their practice. Another 30% are planning to implement one, 14% are interested but not yet pursuing the software and 11% are not interested. The last 4% don’t know.

So where does that leave financial advisers?

Larger CRM companies are acquiring a variety of features to round out their solutions for the end user. Salesforce, for example, offers its service to varying industries, but has customizable features for financial advisers like TK TK.

Then there are the industry-specific CRMs, like Redtail and Junxure.
For advisers, that makes for a bubble of options, and perhaps a little confusion in knowing which to choose.
“The breadth and depth of CRM capabilities available from vendor solutions makes it increasingly challenging to be confident of your technology choice,” Kate Leggett, an analyst with Forrester, wrote in a blog post about the research.

CRMs in the financial services space have evolved to become a much deeper platform for advisers to analyze client data, review business analytics and most importantly foster strong relationships with clients.
“The term CRM for many different people has very different perspectives,” Simon Mulcahy, general manager of financial services for Salesforce, said. “In wealth management it has really been a glorified rolodex and there’s a significant revolution going on in financial services and also in wealth.”

Now more than ever the CRM market is seeing companies latch on to the potential that CRMs have so that the software becomes a hub for the adviser to jump from throughout the day. Junxure, a popular CRM provider, recently offered a cloud service to its advisers, for example.

In the end, the goal is to leverage the CRM so that advisers can engage in stronger conversations with their clients through parsed data and having a background in the client’s lives.

“It goes into giving advice and understanding the needs of the client in as close to real time as possible,” Mr. Mulcahy said.

When it comes to choosing a CRM, Joel Bruckenstein, co-chair of the annual conference Technology Tools for Today, will tell advisers they should consider industry-specific options.
“There are a lot of CRMs out there,” Mr. Bruckenstein said. “A lot of it is not appropriate for financial advisers out of the box.”

Mr. Bruckenstein said about 25-30% of advisers said they used Outlook as a CRM.
“Even Microsoft will tell you Outlook is not a CRM,” he said.

In a 2013 technology study from InvestmentNews, the top five CRM products included Redtail, Junxure, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics and Grendel Online.

David Mehlhorn, director of sales for Redtail Technology, said the variety of options made available can benefit the advisers, but they need to be attentive to what they want out of the software.

“It’s great from the adviser standpoint, there’s a better chance of finding something that fits your needs,” Mr. Mehlhorn said. “I think for an adviser, it’s important to evaluate what’s most important to them.”
The choices also come down to integration, and if the software works with other programs the adviser uses.
“It can be overwhelming,” Aaron Giudotti, chief executive of Grendel said. “You may not realize when we’re talking about CRM, we’re talking about purpose built CRMs.”

“Each solution has their own take on what’s important. We’re all very much the same in many ways, but we’re also very different in many ways.”

Related Topics: CRM