Shereen Mohammed / October 12, 2018Organizations often look at their internal portals as a means to streamline processes and increase productivity for their employees. However, organizations may not see the connection between the portal solution for their advisor employees and the interactions and experience of the customer. Clients no longer see exceptional service as a “nice-to-have” but a requirement to do business. It is important that organizations shift their focus from an internal-only concern to how it impacts every part of an advisor’s day both internally and externally.
When portal solutions are designed correctly, they give access to the financial advisors all the content and tools they need to become more efficient at their jobs. The portal can also become a hindrance to the advisor’s productivity and there are many possible reasons as to why; whether it be disorganization, lack of integration, lack of adoption, latency issues, or navigation. All of these are symptoms of a failing portal that we discuss in-depth in a previous post.
Portal Impacting Advisors
In previous posts, we have highlighted why a failing portal impacts advisors’ productivity. In addition to impacting performance, it also creates negative sentiment between the enterprise and the financial advisor. The advisor becomes frustrated with the enterprise that is providing them the faulty portal. Sentiments such as: “head office doesn’t care about us,” “I can’t work with this,” may begin to arise. There are several possible outcomes that these kinds of negative sentiments may spread and impact the organization.
The first issue is the negativity will impact the clients directly. With the advisors being in a foul mood because they must deal with the headaches of the portals, this can affect their interaction with clients and prospects. Advisors won’t be focused on providing the best possible experience for the client because they are focused on the portal issues. Even worse, they could become negative when interacting with the clients or prospects. The indirect impact to the client experience comes in the form of employee retention. According to a study conducted in 2017, found that up to 50% of employees leave an organization because they feel burnt out. One of the causes for this feel can be due to the stress caused by the ineffective portal. From the perspective of the client or prospect, this would send a terrible message because every few months or years their financial advisor is changing. Clients and prospects need to feel a strong sense of trust in their advisor and prefer to have their advisor with them for a long time as they are working together rather than being passed off.
Portal Impacting Clients
The other way in which an internal advisor portal can impact the client experience is when the portal must be used as part of any client interaction. As the financial advisor is struggling to work within the portal, the client is affected as well even if they never see the portal. Regardless of the cause of the unproductive portal, the end result is delays for the client or prospect – (could be even worse if the information is inaccurate or mislabeled). Furthermore, prospects will be less likely to convert into clients if they notice long wait times to have their inquiries addressed.
Statistics show that clients are 6x time more likely to feel highly engaged with companies that provide rapid service. In addition, 33% of clients said they would recommend a brand that offered a “quick but ineffective response” compared to only 17% who would recommend a brand with a “slow but effective response.” It goes without saying that speed and efficient is the golden formula, but speed matters more. With this is mind, it is important to evaluate and optimize the internal portal solution as unnecessary slow downs caused by the software solution will have a negative effect on the client or prospect’s experience with the financial advisor.
When a financial enterprise looks to implement an internal portal solution, it is a great opportunity to increase productivity and streamline existing processes. However, it is important to go beyond the internal impact to the impact of how a poor portal solution has on the client experience. Everything should be working to enable the financial advisors to provide the best service to their clients and prospects. A failing portal can be a root cause of a negative experience. Whether it be the failing portals effect on the advisor; through stress and frustration leading to possible turnover or poor interactions/behaviour. The failing portal can also directly affect the client through no fault of the advisor. Leaving the client with slow response time or wasted meeting time.
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