Employees of Advisory Firms Still Rely on Traditional Communication Methods, Finds Survey

• 76 percent of client engagements involved in-person meetings.
• 87 percent clients prefer text messages.
• Customizing content for clients, the top challenge

CRM solutions provider Redtail Technology published their survey which found out that in-person meetings and phone calls generate the most client engagement. Around 76 percent client engagement involved in-person meetings and 66 percent involved phone conversations. 

On the flip side, print newsletters (10 percent), podcasts/radio (3percent) and webinars (2.7%) are securing the least amount of engagement from clients. The survey polled more than 3,200 financial advisory professionals across the country in an effort to understand industry trends related to client communication.

“While our industry continues to evolve and expand the tools for wealth management firms to connect with their clients, it appears that advisors are still most comfortable using traditional communication methods,” said Redtail Technology CEO Brian McLaughlin. 

“It’s important for the industry that fintech firms like Redtail continue to work closely with financial advice firms on the adoption resources like the ones we are building at Redtail to ensure advisors are getting the most out of the technology,” he said.

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Most Clients Prefer Text

Another key finding was that while 87 percent of advisory firm employees believe their clients would like to communicate with them via text, 29 percent of firms have a “no client texting” policy in their office. In addition, the survey reveals that 40 percent of the respondents’ broker-dealers have not approved texting as a form of communication with clients. Regardless, 31% of respondents are planning to adopt texting as a communications channel within the next year.

“We expect technology like texting and video calls to become more widely used among financial advisors as they experience increasing demand from clients to leverage the technology – and the need to handle growing pressure from fee compression to use their time more efficiently than ever,” continued McLaughlin.

Additional Findings from Redtail’s ‘Advisorcomms 2019’ Survey

Around 45 percent of financial advisory firms cite customizing content for clients as a top challenge; Other challenges include engaging clients outside of meetings (40 percent) and producing unique (30 percent) and consistent (28 percent) content;

Redtail analyzed data from more than 3,200 wealth management employees across the U.S., with assets under management ranging from $100 million to more than $1 billion. The majority of respondents (87 percent) work for financial advice firms with 1-15 employees.

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