Last Updated on March 30, 2021 by Carlo Navarro
The current competitive landscape is daunting. We’ve been harping on the proliferation of digital platforms and other factors, and the resulting downward pressure on fees. We also pointed out the solution for advisors is to differentiate by looking for new ways to demonstrate communicate value.
The bottom line is that advisors need to identify where they add value and focus on demonstrating and communicating throughout the client relationship. Here’s the thing: most advisors are not set up to do this well. For one thing, it takes dedicated time and effort that goes above and beyond traditional daily tasks and client service. Without automation, a streamlined way to communicate, and a strategy for simplifying, most advisors miss the boat on communicating value to clients. Blueleaf offers advisors a way to communicate value efficiently and regularly, without all the heavy lifting.
Blueleaf Inspires Creativity in Differentiation and Demonstration of Value
As far as demonstrating value is concerned, performance reports alone don’t cut it anymore. Your clients want to understand the concrete ways you’re helping them get closer to their financial goals. As we discussed before, wealth management services are mostly abstract, which makes it doubly hard to convey just what you’re doing for your clients. Blueleaf helps you deliver tangible value to your clients — and communicate that value… automatically.
The Value of Simplicity — Where many wealth managers/firms go wrong is aiming to be “graded-by-weight” by including as much as they can think of in their reporting to clients. They hope something will resonate but the truth is that most often nothing does because clients are overwhelmed and confused with too much of the wrong information. Blueleaf helps advisors simplify the information they present to clients. Simplicity brings clarity. Clarity allows clients to see value.
For example, each screen in Blueleaf’s client portal answers a single one of your clients’ most pressing questions. That focus allows clients to understand what’s happening with their money and how they’re doing at a glance. They can explore other financial questions just as easily. By delivering complex financial information in such a simple, focused, and branded design, clients associate clarity and simplicity with your service. A tangible value, demonstrated and communicated automatically.
Automated Communication and “Always On” Access — Somewhere along the way, misconceptions like “don’t talk to your clients about money unless they’re sitting right in front of you” and “don’t do anything more often than once a year” became hidden beliefs for many. Blueleaf, however, discovered that frequent, meaningful communication to clients about their money is the key to calm clients focused on the long-term.
Blueleaf helps advisors go beyond the box-checking behavior of simply delivering quarterly performance reporting. We take it up a notch with automated email updates and 24/7 access to whatever is going on in their accounts. Nothing puts the mind at ease like easy access to important information.
Holistic Financial Picture — “Trust” and “transparency” are often the go-to descriptors for wealth management value propositions. Both are important, but they’re just words without the actions that create the conditions for trust. Nothing builds trust over time and inspires clients to feel confident in your services as well as serving a client holistically.
With Blueleaf, customers can connect outside assets, even for accounts that you’re not currently managing. Not only does this enable you to provide them with a holistic financial picture that takes more than just the assets you manage into account, but it’s a practice of trust and transparency between advisor and client. In many cases, it can even precipitate asset gathering and grow your business.
Proactive Problem-Solving — Blueleaf’s client portal allows advisors to see their clients’ activities (e.g. “Sam Jones opened the weekly email 17 times in the last week”). These valuable insights into your clients’ mindset and journey through their finances are highly actionable.
You can demonstrate value by proactively reaching out to address any problems or questions that client activity suggests that might be brewing. You can appear to almost read your clients mind, squashing concern before it grows into something else. Another tangible value for clients.
Anxiety-Free Customer Experience — Blueleaf helps advisors get straight to the point. Advisors have exactly the information they need at their fingertips. There’s no need to rifle through pages of extraneous charts and graphs to supplement client conversations, and you don’t have to drag clients through every single number. You’re free to focus on the big picture — and provide the information that counts directly to your clients. Clients can easily follow along without being distracted by extraneous detail.
Check out a blog post we wrote:
Blueleaf Communication Tools Keeps You Top of Mind With Clients
Blueleaf not only provides the insights needed to help you identify and demonstrate unique areas of value, but it also helps you communicate how you are demonstrating value, too. Clients are hungry for clarity, and Blueleaf makes communication simple so you can focus on what you do best.
Automated Email Updates: This is our most loved feature at Blueleaf. In addition to being a way advisors demonstrate value, it’s also a way they can clearly communicate that value, regularly and frequently. It’s a unique tool that many of our advisors say their clients can’t live without.
Advisors love the way that small touchpoints add value in a way that quarterly or annual meetings just don’t. They also love how the emails streamline and automate operations. If a client has a question and replies to the email update, their response goes directly to the advisor. Again, this facilitates proactive communication so that advisors can answer questions before they become serious issues.
Client Portal: Blueleaf’s client portal is the one-stop-shop for you and your clients. Your clients have 24/7 access to the most important information about their accounts with you, available in an easy to digest format.
Specifically, the portal answers their most pressing questions: 1) What do I have?, 2) How am I doing?, and 3) Am I OK. By clearly presenting information about the first two questions, it helps clients answer the third in an intuitive, organic way.
Mobile App: Blueleaf’s mobile app means access to information is just a few taps away for clients. Clients can keep a finger on the pulse of their money remotely, and self-service options mean clients can get answers anywhere, anytime — extending the portal service to mobile devices. Clients can quickly and conveniently see their balance overview, performance details, and holdings. Whether they want to see what’s changed, garner insights into the performance of their portfolio, or see a breakdown of individual investments, they can do it all from the palm of their hands.
The mobile app also facilitates live advisor/client communication that Advisors can control. Clients can book time through the app’s calendar feature, eliminating the need for back-and-forth when it comes to scheduling. The mobile app also caters to clients’ communication preferences, giving them the option to choose whether they want to use email or text.
The wealth management terrain will only get more challenging as technology and new competitive models continue to disrupt. Having a strategy for differentiation and demonstration of value is key. Blueleaf helps you execute that strategy, quickly and seamlessly, so you can focus on helping your clients reach their financial goals. Automation, insights, and communication tools enable our customers to figure out where they add value, find easier ways to demonstrate that value, and clearly communicate it all to clients.
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