Using client portals to enhance the client relationship
The use of client portals has grown significantly in recent years across a variety of industries as customers increasingly expect on-demand visibility of their data. But while providing clients with easy access to information about their products and services is increasingly becoming the norm in other parts of financial services, like insurance and banking, adoption of client portals has been slower among financial advice firms.
According to the lang cat’s 2022 A Fragmented World report, many advisers feel part of the problem is that a client’s initial experience with a firm sets their expectations from that point onwards. If the first meeting is face-to-face, it can be difficult to get a client to engage with fact-finding, risk profiling and such online. However, the opposite is also true: if the use of a portal is established from the outset as a central part of the proposition, clients are likely to embrace the benefits it offers.
This is certainly the experience of intelliflo office user Jeff Lange, CEO of The Financial Advice Service (TFAS). Founded in 2014, TFAS offers remote independent financial advice to people throughout the UK. Its advisers interact with clients across multiple platforms including the telephone as well as Zoom and Teams, managing a broad range of clients nationwide, with assets across the wealth spectrum from tens of thousands to over a million.
They tell clients about the importance of the client portal within the process from the start. Jeff explains, “From the very first contact we have with any client, we make it clear that the intelliflo personal finance portal is part of how we do financial advice. We sell the benefits to clients of being able to interact with us through the portal, walk them through how to register and log in, and then immediately start communicating with them through it. From providing information and the pre-fact find, to their immediate financial situation and objectives, all the way through to the final submission of an application, signing agreements and ongoing communication, the personal finance portal is very much an integrated, integral part of our consumer journey.”
He has found clients very willing to embrace digital tools: “Everyone is more savvy with technology now – these days my grandmother is better on an iPad than I am! And expectations of instantaneous accessibility have also changed, especially since Covid. People expect to interact with things at their own convenience and at a time that works for them. They want to see and feel what’s happening now, as opposed to getting an update every six to 12 months. And they want information to be presented to them in a user-friendly way. The personal finance portal allows us to do all this, supporting stronger client relationships and improving engagement.”
Jeff believes including a client portal in the advice journey can also help demonstrate the value firms provide to their clients, helping to meet the requirements of Consumer Duty: “When looking at the value a firm provides its clients, being able to say ‘I’ve got a digital portal where my clients can interact with me and access information whenever they want’ is really powerful. And as the portal is in our firm’s brand, we’re a constant companion for the client, so to speak, when they access their financial planning information. It reinforces our unique position as the intermediary between the consumer and the wider marketplace and helps clients recognise the value we provide.”
With the possible further evolution of the advice profession with the FCA’s advice guidance boundary review, the potential benefits to firms of embracing client portals could go further still. Portals offer opportunities to gather data to gain a deeper understanding of your clients to better inform client segmentation, aid proposition development by uncovering areas of unfulfilled need and highlight inefficiencies or additional resource requirements.