Over this series of columns, Rowan Whittington, Chief Product Officer at Dynamic Planner, has been looking at how advances in technology can help you increase capacity in your business – while providing a service with a human connection at its heart.
In this final instalment, she turns her attention to valuations and reviews: how you can use technology to help you keep the client on track.
Enabling regular check-ins…
Getting out the laptop, digging out the details of a platform or portal, changing a forgotten password… and then only seeing a number and a graph, often with little context to support confidence and understanding. In a world in which we can all see our bank accounts with one tap on our phone, the old way for clients to check in on their investments now feels very dated.
Advisers are well aware that this is the case. In Dynamic Planner’s Advice 2025 report, the difficulty of checking in on progress emerged as the second-biggest thing advice professionals believed consumers would change about receiving advice.Among digital natives in the 24-35 age bracket, it was the top priority.
This is where your financial planning app comes in. By putting the financial plan in the palm of their hand, app technology lets clients check their investments just as easily as they check their bank balance. Automated data feeds allow the latest valuation to pull in overnight, with no manual work from you.
…with a side of reassurance
But doesn’t this create its own problems? In conversations with your clients, you might well tell them not to check in too often – and for good reason, because the ups and downs along the way are a normal part of the investment journey, but often cause clients to panic.
A study conducted by Dynamic Planner’s Dr Louis Williams in partnership with the University of Reading used eye tracking technology to explore how clients interact with performance charts.
What the authors discovered reinforces the view that care is needed in how performance is presented. Clients heavily focus on recent performance, which can distort their long-term view and affect their decision-making.
The flipside, though, is that more engaged clients are more likely to take positive steps for their future, too – to cut down on their spending and invest more, for example.
So, the answer can’t be maintaining the friction that preserves client apathy. Instead, it’s about building in reassurance alongside the valuation, so that if the client sees something that concerns them, they quickly regain their confidence.
Our solution in Dynamic Planner’s Tram app is to focus attention not on the value of the client’s pot, but on how they’re doing against their plan. If the client sees a dip at the end of a line on a graph, they are much less likely to worry about it if it comes with reassurance that they’re still on track.
You could also use content alongside the chart – for example, adding a quick read about the importance of remaining invested through periods of volatility when the market landscape is uncertain.
Annual reviews without the pain
That’s automating reassurance throughout the year. What about when you’re talking to the client? How can technology take more of the load?
The post-Consumer Duty regulatory environment put the annual review at the heart of ongoing service. But delivering those reviews has historically been a heavy lift, with the manual process for producing a review report taking anything from two to four hours. With automation and digital fact-finding, you can get that down to mere minutes.
Now, AI has the potential to accelerate the efficiencies. One clear use case is in capturing what happens in the meeting. AI can now transcribe the meeting, produce a summary, identify actions for both you and the client – and, if it’s embedded in your financial planning software, extract key data to update the client’s record and pull into the report.
AI can also help to ensure suitability by design, checking the report against regulatory requirements and your firm’s policies.
The future of reviews
The regulatory landscape potentially shifts again with the FCA’s consultation on Simplified Advice, which deemphasises the annual review. In the future, reviews could happen based on client needs and circumstances or become more of an ongoing process.
You might choose to automate some aspects through your app – regular check-ins with your clients, on an appropriate cadence, to ensure their plan still reflects their circumstances or that nothing has changed with their risk profile.
I hope this series has given you some ideas about ways to streamline your processes and deepen ongoing client engagement. I know from my conversations that many firms are already embracing the productivity gains available, unlocking capacity and enabling them to get advice to more of those who need it. I look forward to seeing the benefits for both the industry and for society.
About Rowan Whittington
Rowan is Product Director at Dynamic Planner. Her role in the Senior Leadership Team is to create, accelerate, and deliver on new and emerging initiatives whilst also contributing to the overall running of the business.
Focussing on Tram, Dynamic Planner’s white-labelled mobile app for customers, Rowan focuses her energy on better supporting our existing partners in delivering digital, capacity-building, seamless financial advice journeys. Using her previous experience as Director of Product and previously Head of Personal Finance for Confused.com, she brings a deep understanding of customers and their micro and macro approach to personal finances. Having led Confused.com cultural initiatives to win FinTech Company of the Year 2023, she considers Growth in people alongside profit and product and takes a holistic view of her role.
Rowan is an inspirational leader, listed on Innovate Women in FinTech Powerlist two years running, experienced in curating friendly yet professional company cultures through empowered teams and stakeholder buy-in. She has an active personal commitment to the charity and arts sectors as a Board member and Business coach. She graduated in English Language and Communication from Cardiff University.
