Financial Advisory Firms Can Leverage Customizable Workflow Automation Technology to Create a Personalized "Starbucks" Client Experience
SAN DIEGO, March 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — Fox Financial Planning Network (FFPN) announced today the availability of a new industry white paper that highlights the ability for advisors to systematize the delivery of their client services through automated workflow technology to create a consistent and outstanding client experience that can be personalized to each and every client.
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The industry report, "The 'Starbucks Experience' Part 2 – Using Technology to Personalize the Client Service Experience" builds upon an earlier report authored by FFPN that provides insight into how advisors can flexibly design and automate client service workflows to scale their practices, drive efficiencies and enhance profitability. This second report in the "Starbucks Experience" series extends these concepts to focus on the recent availability of specific "integrative middleware" workflow technology platforms that can bring all front and back office aspects of an advisory firm's business together.
According to the report, 63% of advisory firms surveyed have less than a quarter of their daily tasks documented, with only a tiny minority (7%) with three fourths or more of those tasks documented. Additionally, when it comes to integrating technology systems to drive efficiency, again a majority of firms (67%) have only two or fewer. This fragmentation of a firm's processes and lack of workflow tools and integrations is becoming a pressing problem, leading to capacity constraints and a declining service model for many advisory firms and putting them at risk of losing business to firms with highly developed processes or, worse yet, to the emerging "robo-advisors."
"In order to provide a consistent and efficient level of service, advisors and their staff need to document the steps of their daily tasks and then automate those steps that no longer need human involvement," said Deborah Fox, CEO and founder of FFPN. "This has been difficult in the past due to lack of technology integrations and a unified platform to bring all of the systems, data and workflows together. However, solutions are now becoming available with the new emergence of 'middleware' technologies that allow multi-directional data sharing to occur between systems that can automate many processes that previously had to be completed manually."
According to the report, "The powerful combination of technology integration connections and next generation workflow engines will provide the industry with a compelling solution for deploying customizable and personalized client service delivery infrastructure, that can lead to greater efficiency, scalability and profitability for both institutions and advisory firms."
The white paper includes the results of an industry survey on technology, integrations and workflows, representing the experiences of 200 advisors from across the industry. The results quantifiably show the lack of progress advisors have made in their efforts to automate workflows and integrate technology, despite the recent large-scale efforts of many industry participants.
To learn more, download the report from www.FoxFinancialPlanningNetwork.com.
About Fox Financial Planning Network
FFPN is transforming the way advisors operate by providing the tools, templates, workflows and consulting to systematize the delivery of financial advice. Based on the experiences of Deborah Fox, a 29-year veteran financial advisor, FFPN provides a comprehensive set of resources enabling advisors to increase profitability, ensure compliance, scale their practice, while growing their firms. FFPN is a network of financial advisors and best-in-class technology providers, consultants and other financial industry resource providers that together, are improving the lives of financial advisors, their staff and their clients by helping them evolve their financial advisory businesses. www.FoxFinancialPlanningNetwork.com
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