Wealth management has struggled to recover from the credit crunch and all that accompanied it in terms of reputational damage and lost investor confidence. Now, as the sector is emerging from the crisis what key issues will transform wealth management? Take a look at our 5 transformational ‘T’s’ for wealth management to find out:

Technology
Technology has become more than simply a back office operation. Whilst a strong focus on technology remains essential to ensuring day to day efficiency and cost control, choosing the right technological tools has evolved into what is now very much a front office, marketing and customer service issue.

Clients expect to be able to pick and choose which online tools they use and they expect all of the information they want to be available via their chosen device, wherever they may be.

Technology is no longer simply about cutting expenditure, it’s become a hygiene factor for good customer service and a way to engage and retain clients to help build a business that’s profitable and sustainable over the longer term.

Transparency
Whether it’s the transparency and simplicity of investment products themselves, clear and concise client reporting or the more fundamental transparency and assurance reports demanded by institutional investors, transparency has become an essential feature of asset management.
Inevitably, however, transparency comes with certain strings attached when it comes to client reporting. Giving investors the information they need can become cumbersome and time consuming… unless you invest upfront in the right tools for the job.

Trust
Of course, at the end of the day transparency is key because of its role in building trust. In an industry that is still struggling to conquer the demons of the credit crunch and the financial upheaval that followed in its wake, trust has never been more important.
Superior client reporting and state of the art online analysis and interactive tools are one way of showing the world that you’re open and honest; A way to rebuild the trust that’s essential to all client relationships.

Types not ££££
It is no longer acceptable to see £ signs instead of customer types. Whereas in the past, segmentation efforts barely extended beyond classifying customers by the level of assets under management, today’s clients demand to be managed personally. They expect customised treatment that differs according to their investment objectives, personal values and the big social issues that concern them most.

As customers the world over reject the sales-led, mass advertising approaches of past years, demonstrating – no, proving – that a client-led strategy is at the heart of a business will become the key to acquiring and retaining customers and asset. Differentiation will increasingly come to mean a differentiated service as well as a stand-out product offering and focusing on servicing client needs will continue to grow in importance.

Tweaking
So what’s left for our final ‘transformational T’ – well, tweaking. One size never did fit all, but now clients don’t just expect an appreciation of their unique needs and characteristics, they expect things to actually change as a result. Clients want to be treated in a highly personalised way. They want to be able to choose what they read in their client reports, they want to choose which factors to investigate using market analysis tools. In short, they want to be in control.

To give clients the control they crave, and to grow and retain asset, each and every wealth manager will need to get the balance right when it comes to technology, trust, transparency, types and tweaking…. anything less is unlikely to be good enough.


About

Before becoming a freelance writer and digital marketeer, Hazel was Group Marketing Manager at Santander.