This is where hybrid advice can deliver for adviser firms. Using digitally enabled technology, that combines automation and digital processes, to help bring clients onboard, with the option or progression to have contact with an adviser, means clients are able to interact with the advice firm in the way that best suits their needs at the different stages of their wealth accumulation journey.
Offering choice in terms of the assistance they can receive from their financial advice provider – basic help, guidance or full advice – and how they receive it can open up financial advice services to this new wave of investors and savers.
As an example, someone who is looking for pension guidance, may not want, need, or be prepared to pay an adviser. However, they may open to being taken through the advice process of a trusted and established advice firm using techniques such as chat bots to help with explanations and guide them in the right direction. The same can be true of someone who wants to use their ISA allowance, or wants help with regularly investing into an investment portfolio. Such a journey can be set up so that it can be easy to follow and is aligned to the advice firm’s investment or pensions policy.
This self-serve guidance is affordable to the client and can be operated with very little input from the advice firm, making it a profitable addition to a full-advice service.
For clients who want or need more than basic guidance but who do not need full advice, a hybrid, digitally led service can also be established for them, using similar techniques to help clients through the fact find and onboarding process and provide two-way communication with an adviser when needed.
In this way the hybrid advice model can deliver the right interaction for the individual client, while saving time on core processes.
For example, firms automating fact find creation have saved 30-45 minutes of advisers’ client-facing time and suitability report writing has been shortened from 6-7 hours to 35 minutes.
On a broader scale, we’ve been able to reduce end-to-end advice processes from 35-50 hours to 9.5 hours. This creates more time for the adviser to focus on the client and their long-term goals and aspirations.
From an operational perspective, providing a hybrid service, the financial advice firm’s processes can be more efficient, cost effective, and so more profitable. In addition, no matter how the client interacts with the advice firm there is a consistent and compliant approach, aligned to the firm’s advice policy, with integrated technology.
Hybrid advice is opening up new channels to the mass and high net worth clients of tomorrow and the future. We believe, capturing these clients as soon as possible will be essential for financial advice firms looking to their long-term future.
