SS&C Technologies : The importance of a client portal in a fast-paced, tech-driven world

Does your client portal serve the instant-gratification expectations of today's digital consumer? Does it represent your brand to your clients and more importantly, will it help attract future clients? Having a professional-looking website is important and maintaining an active social media presence is good, but it is still not enough. The most forward-thinking advisors are offering their clients a convenient, personalized experience available on-demand in the form of a client portal. Clients who actively engage with an advisor's client portal tend to invest more and stay longer.

Most advisory firms have a client portal of some sort but not all portals are the same. In its basic form, a client portal is an online access point for advisors and clients to communicate and share information. In many cases, advisors customize the client portal through a series of profile-based settings to provide clients access to data and information most relevant to them. By using these profile-based entitlements, advisors can offer like-minded investors the same experience, which allows them to operate at scale.

Most of your clients are already using client portals today for things like banking, paying bills and more. Therefore, it is only natural for them to expect the same convenience from you, their financial advisor. Clients enjoy having the option to interact with your firm when and how they want. Providing your clients with an online customer service option saves time because you do not have to respond to every client request in real-time. Face-to-face meetings are still the most engaging form of communication, but digital interactions are a strong and necessary companion.

Not only do client portals provide convenience, they can offer what feels like a personalized experience. Something as simple as welcoming users by name upon login can go a long way in positioning your firm as high-touch service professionals. A client portal also gives you the opportunity to share important personal data with clients securely. This provides both compliance-related benefits and gives clients the most up-to-date information upon login. Some clients may still prefer mailed paper statements, but an increasing number will begin to ask about e-statements. The client portal serves as the perfect medium of exchange for those requests.

The bottom line is that a client portal enables advisors to provide a more personalized, convenient, modern customer experience. An innovative client portal can serve as an important point of differentiation for advisors looking to promote the more personal aspect of their service offering.

The Black Diamond Investor Experience provides advisors with a customizable, intuitively designed digital portal to meet and exceed the expectations of affluent investors. If you are interested in learning more about the Black Diamond Wealth Platform and Investor Experience, please contact us at info@advent.com

Wealth Management

Black Diamond , client portal , Advisor , digital