Does Your Tech Stack Give Customers the Best Experience?

What’s the quickest way to sour the customer experience?

Press 1. Press 4. Press #.

Say “Yes.” Repeat “Yes.” Yell “YES!” And then press 0-0-0-0 repeatedly.

“Sorry, I can’t understand you. Back to Main Menu.”

Too often, technology is implemented for the sake of cost or efficiency, not the customer experience. As an advisor, your most important assets are your clients. If they are discouraged, or worse, disengaged by your current technology offering, it may be time to focus on the “Experience Stack.”

The Tech Stack Trap

“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology—not the other way around.” – Steve Jobs, co-founder, Apple

Advisors often purchase technology to improve their workflow, but struggle to use it efficiently. What looks simple during a demo is frustratingly complex during regular use. This complexity is a problem for their customers as well. Clients want to engage with advisors across multiple channels, and they expect consistency regardless of whether they’re talking to a bot, emailing, clicking on a website, or jumping back and forth between their laptop and their phone.

Putting the Customer First

Focus on the customer experience is growing rapidly. In 2017, as firms looked to improve efficiency and maximize profit, only 14.6 percent of respondents reported the client experience as a top factor when evaluating tech performance¹. Now, things have swung back the other way—in 2019, 72 percent of firms say the client experience is a top consideration when deciding whether to invest in new technology.

The Experience Stack: Less is More

Technology used for the ease of customers should take priority over flashy and cumbersome tech stacks. It’s easy to understand why 55 percent of wealth management executives want to prioritize operational efficiency² given that so many disparate tools may be available within their firms. While technology and tools can help advisors do their jobs, without integration, they will not improve the client experience.

By focusing on the Experience Stack, firms can streamline advisor workflows so they can deliver value to clients beyond fluctuations of the market. Instead of selling a product, advisors will be selling outcomes—the lifestyle that goals- and cash-flow based planning will help clients achieve.

Click here to read more about the importance of “The Experience Stack.”

¹2017 InvestmentNews Advisor Technology Study

²Cerulli Associates, Advisor Edge: Technology, Q1 2019