Thinking of Joining the Digital Revolution?
Here’s ten things to consider when implementing a client portal for your business:
Making a technology decision to introduce a client portal is important and increasingly clients will expect this to be part of your service. Communicating the service, building adoption and getting clients to use it regularly is the key to unlocking the benefits of the portal.
Here are some tips to consider when introducing new technology to clients -
1. Understanding client problems is key. For most of us, financial services is complex and the data on all our products is spread across many providers. Your clients want their finances to be easier to manage. Make sure your portal helps them achieve this.
2. Aim small, miss small. Have a plan to get all of your clients using the portal. This will maximise the efficiency of your firm and unlock significant cost savings through efficiency and removing paper from your business, We wouldn’t advise that you start by having all your clients go live on day one but this should be your end game.
How many clients do you want to start with? Identify early adopters who are keen to get involved at the early stage. Who will give you productive feedback? Learn what works and adapt your wider rollout accordingly.
"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.” Steve Jobs, Apple Computers.
3. Have something interesting to say. Simply introducing online access to a spreadsheet that reports on a subset of a client’s wealth has been around for a while and won’t differentiate your service. Clients benefit most from being able to manage their paperwork. So include the ability to store and share documents and secure messages as part of your rollout.
4. Focus on a handful of benefits only. Introduce the most relevant client benefits that can be easily achieved and then introduce others over time so you keep up regular communications on the portal.
5. KISS – Keep It Simple. Make sure it’s easy for your clients to use and your communications are easy to digest. If you have a 3 step process, make it 2!
6. Use the right language. If your client portal offers “account aggregation and automated feeds from multiple providers, platforms, banks and many other financial institutions”, what matters to clients is the convenience and simplicity of “everything in one place”.
7. Use video to highlight your new service. Google acquired YouTube a few years ago as they recognised people would rather ‘watch’ than ‘read’.
8. Avoid raising concerns in your comms. A common mistake is to focus on issues you think your clients should care about, like internet security. If your clients have concerns, they will ask, just make sure you’ve got the answers ready.
9. Set yourself simple targets. Adoption takes time. Great systems achieve adoption of around 50-55%. If you achieve that, you've just improved the lives of over half of your client base. Adoption is never instant so measure your success over time and monitor what works with your clients and what doesn’t.
10. Listen to feedback then do your own thing. It turns out most of us do not know what we want unless its closely related to what we already have.
"It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.” Steve Jobs, Apple Computers.
If you are considering implementing a client portal, click here to register for one of our regular webinars, or alternatively book a 15 minute 1-2-1 chat with our Business Development Director Sim Sangha here.
