As advisors, establishing and maintaining strong client relationships is vital to the financial health and longevity of our businesses. For many of us who own our own businesses or work at bigger firms, managing each of these relationships day in and day out would be nearly impossible without the support from Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. That’s not to say, though, that we should be leaning on CRM for financial advisors to do all of the heavy lifting.
As your business grows, everything seems to get more complicated. More clients means more portfolio management and planning. More portfolio management and planning means more time spent checking-in on and learning about client-specific situations. And more time spent researching the market means more time spent in the office. Ultimately, CRM systems are put into play to help make managing all of these different components a little easier. But when you let the CRM system completely take over, you lose a huge portion of the value proposition you bring to your clients as an advisor – personalized customer service.
Creating a strong client-advisor relationship requires constant nurturing efforts as well as something that, as advisors, we don’t necessarily have an abundance of: time.
It’s up to an advisor to establish, maintain, and sustain relationships. There’s no amount of technology that can completely replace what the human touch can bring to a client-advisor relationship. Instead of letting your CRM system guide you, you need to guide your CRM system. Think of your CRM system as a digital toolbelt. Yes, it comes with tools that will help make your job easier and, truthfully, quicker. But the tools can’t do it themselves, you have to take action and use those tools in order for them to work.
CRM systems have been the bread and butter of time and process management in the industry for years. But at some point, it’s important to take a step back and ask yourself, “Are my current processes and tools helping me meet my end goal?” and “Am I using them in a way that benefits me and my clients?” Sometimes, the answer is yes, and others the answer is no. If your answer falls into the latter, it might be time to look into integrating your CRM system with an AI assistant.
