Why a financial adviser's time is worth more money than ever
From reacting to shifts in the market, to how swiftly an adviser responds to client queries, and the time taken to achieve financial goals – these days clients won't settle for anything less than prompt service, and advisers can't afford to either.
“If you're not continually meeting the needs and expectations of your clients, over time they'll become dissatisfied and therein lies the risk because they will seek alternative providers to meet their needs, and there are plenty of providers promising to do so.” says CommSec Adviser Services General Manager Eric Blewitt.
“The successful advisers and practices are changing their business models to make their back-office more efficient.”
Saving time, improving responsiveness
Multi-tasking may sound like a good way to save time, but mistakes are bound to occur without the right processes and tools in place.
“Everyone thinks multi-tasking is a good thing but there's a whole lot of science that shows if you try to do two things at once it takes you 60% more time to complete them than if you'd done them consecutively.” Blewitt says.
With that in mind, CommSec Adviser Services has launched an adviser dashboard that makes key client information available to advisers’ fingertips. The new dashboard makes it easier for advisers to manage their clients more efficiently.
Quick but comprehensive
Consolidating processes is a great way of speeding up service delivery while ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.
To help advisers achieve this, CommSec Adviser Services has integrated the investment lending website with the cash and trading website. The platform provides real-time pricing and loan status updates, loan attention warnings, and easy loan feature identification.
“At the same time, advisers will benefit from the recent introduction of Goldman Sachs investment research on Australian and New Zealand equities and macroeconomic research.
“We've been able to deliver Goldman Sachs' investment research to our Australian advisers, research which is well respected globally.” Blewitt says.
Reducing double-handling
Paperwork errors slow down client service considerably so moving to interactive online application forms makes reams of sense.
CommSec Adviser Services has recently launched a single new ’smart’ online application form for trading and cash accounts. It responds to the selections made by the applicant, displaying only the applicable fields and validates information captured to ensure all mandatory fields have been completed correctly.
“Advisers using online application forms have a significantly higher straight-through processing rate and a lower error or rejection rate.” Blewitt notes.
“There's about a 30-40% improvement in the end-to-end time. We now have almost fifty percent of our applications online.”
The payoff
The payback for time saved in the back-office can be redirected to your front office to deliver what your clients now demand - more responsive, effective and personalised service.
Learn more about how CommSec Adviser Services can help you save time and boost customer satisfaction.
Disclaimer: CommSec Adviser Services is a brand of Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) ABN 48 123 123 124 AFSL and Australian credit licence 234945. Share trading and Portfolio Administration and Reporting are services provided by Australian Investment Exchange Ltd (AUSIEX) ABN 71 076 515 930 AFSL No. 241400, a Participant of the ASX Group and Chi-X Australia. AUSIEX is a wholly owned but non-guaranteed subsidiary of CBA. The Accelerator Cash Account and Term Deposit are products issued by CBA and administered by AUSIEX under the brand of CommSec Adviser Services. CommSec Adviser Services Investment Loans and CALIA+ facilities are provided by the CBA, administered by its wholly owned but non-guaranteed subsidiary Commonwealth Securities Limited ABN 60 067 254 399 AFSL 238814. IMPORTANT – please visit the CommSec Adviser Services website for detailed information on all products and services on offer.
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