Maintaining High-Touch Client Communications in a High-Tech World

Change can take place gradually or in an instant. This year has certainly been one of those times requiring quick adaption. Our already digital world accelerated into quite literally a virtual reality. While there is no replacement for face-to-face interactions, it has become apparent that technology can be effective at maintaining the personal touch that’s required to deliver an exceptional client experience.

Waiting to have a key conversation until an in-person meeting occurs is no longer practical and staying on the same page over time can feel challenging. The Black Diamond® Wealth Platform has been working to solve for this – recognizing that advisors need digital communication tools to strike the right balance between high-tech and high-touch.

For instance, the Relationship Timeline within the Client Experience portal memorializes the value an advisor delivers to clients over time through an interactive web feed. Advisors are leveraging Timeline to document financial decisions, celebrate goal achievements as well as post reports, videos, relevant news articles, market commentary, meeting notes, and more. Clients instantaneously receive a notification on their mobile device with the option to reply.

More and more, advisors are using Timeline as a means for daily communication. That’s because Timeline was built to be highly personalized, yet extremely efficient and connected to the rest of the Black Diamond experience. Furthermore, communication oversight is simple since every interaction is documented in a single, filter-friendly interface. Timeline supports sending messages to individual clients, or, for more mass communication types, many at one time. Taking it a step further, in early 2021 the Black Diamond team will be rolling out a mechanism for efficient targeting of client groups based on the topic.

Consider the possible scenarios that could occur in any given week. Each of these examples shows how technology supports the human element in a virtual setting:

• Monday: Share new educational savings considerations to all clients with students who are nearing college age.
• Tuesday: Distribute an article touting the rise of socially responsible investing to clients by demographic.
• Wednesday: Send a required update notice to clients who have meaningful exposure to municipal bonds in a particular state.
• Thursday: Provide an immediate investment perspective to clients who hold a particular stock that’s been impacted by a major news event.
• Friday: Recommend a virtual event to all East Coast clients who have an interest in cooking.

Electronic document signing, once preferred by many advisors as an in-person ceremony, is now expected to be a digital experience. Plus, there’s the added layer of keeping track and overseeing completion since it is no longer an immediate, face-to-face occurrence. A solid e-sign workflow is critical to pulling this off. That’s why the Black Diamond team is accelerating two new ideas for the Client Experience portal designed to keep advisors and clients in sync.

The first is a To-Do List. This feature, to begin initial rollout later in Q4, is where an advisor can assign individual tasks to clients following a call or video conference.  This will promote action and remind them of the support they are receiving by placing necessary follow-ups front and center, but subtly and seamlessly.

Connecting digitally with clients doesn’t have to be robotic, impersonal, or inefficient. It should be a value-add, considerate, and show accessibility – all while fitting into an advisor’s day-to-day workflows. 

To learn more about how Black Diamond connects advisors and clients, request a personalized demo today.