5 Ways Today’s Wealth Management CRM Falls Short
The Wealth Management Industry is Evolving Faster Than Ever.
Clients expect personalized and timely service. Advisors expect technology that makes their day easier, not more complicated. But even though there are a lot of customer relationship management (CRM) solutions out there, including many by large and well-known companies, it’s not easy to find a solution that truly works for wealth management firms and the advisors working with them.
In our experience, the opposite is true – when we talk with potential clients who are interested in the NexJ Integrated Advisor Desktop (IAD), what we hear is a lot about what doesn’t work for them. Most of the CRMS they see are originally built for generic sales teams, and don’t meet the complex needs of modern wealth management firms.
These are the top frustrations we hear about widely available CRM solutions for the wealth management industry, plus why it’s time to rethink your approach to CRM:
1. Client Data Stuck in Silos
CRMs are supposed to be the central repository for all customer information. But in financial services, data is ever-changing and comes from many different sources. Too often, a shiny new CRM becomes little more than a glorified rolodex, a place to stash some basic customer information that sits next to other silos that contain other types of data.
2. Weak Data Integration
Along those same lines, the integration promised by many CRM providers is one-way. Even if an advisor can pull in data from other silos, it often is either a static readout that can’t be updated, or a copy of data from another database that, if updated, then needs to be manually changed in the source database too. The gold standard is true data integration: Tying systems together so that data remains in its original location, but the data can still be manipulated and edited as if it were native to the system.
3. Endless App Switching
When using an un-integrated CRM, advisors find they spend a lot of time bouncing between applications or tabs in their browser, logging into different systems with different credentials, and needing to transpose data from one application to another (a common source of errors.) This eats up time, mental energy and efficiency for advisors, which costs the firm’s profitability.
4. Costly Customization
Out of the box, broad, horizontal CRM solutions don’t have the base level of data fields and functionality advisors need. These systems may look more affordable at first, but by the time a wealth management firm has paid for the extensive customization and integration required, the result costs significantly more – and in the worst cases can feel ramshackle and buggy.
5. Low Advisor Adoption
All of these usability and efficiency issues feed into one final frustration: Low adoption rates within a firm. If a CRM isn’t being used, it becomes an expensive white elephant, good for very little but requiring expensive care and upkeep.
The Smarter Alternative: the NexJ Integrated Advisor Desktop
NexJ has spent more than two decades perfecting systems that enable the efficiency of advisors by effectively managing their customer engagement. While our IAD in fact helps do the same things traditional CRM’s promise, we don’t even think of it as a true standalone CRM. Instead, our IAD is designed to be an efficient, intuitive, single point of integration of all the systems wealth management advisors need.
Our base NexJ Wealth Management Model has many of the features and fields commonly needed by advisors already built in and is designed for integration with all of the most common tools wealth managers need. Since each firm is different, we are able to customize and combine features just the way a firm needs, but our efforts are spent integrating with a specific mix of applications, not simply getting the system to work for financial firms.
That integration helps reduce or even eliminate many top advisor complaints about CRM: a single sign on makes accessing applications easier, data integration reduces errors, and by breaking down silos advisors can more easily keep all systems up to date.
Beyond that, the NexJ IAD finds new opportunities to improve efficiency. It can recommend next best actions for advisors and even mine available data to find customers who may be candidates for new services.
It’s no wonder that NexJ enjoys excellent adoption with advisors at many large wealth firms and leading banks, helping raise the productivity and profitability of advisors and firms alike.
In fact, in a recent Investment Executive brokerage report card, advisors from one of NexJ’s largest clients ranked their firm as top for advisor desktop and tools and support for dealing with changing regulations. Advisors also gave them the best net promoter score, a real vote of confidence for how the firm supports its employees.
Don’t Let Your CRM Hold You Back
In today’s competitive wealth management landscape, the wrong CRM isn’t just an inconvenience – it’s a major liability. Your advisors can’t afford to waste time with broken integrations, missing data, and outdated processes when clients expect real-time, personalized service.
Your firm doesn’t need to settle. With NexJ’s Integrated Advisor Desktop, wealth managers finally have a CRM designed for how they do business – purpose built to boost adoption, simplify workflows, enhance client interactions, and deliver ROI.
Book a no-obligation consultation with us today. to explore how NexJ’s Integrated Advisor Desktop can address the CRM pain points at your firm.
