Advisers lag on digital communication
Adapting to copious amounts of regulations, including the Future of Financial Advice and the life insurance framework meant financial advisers have not focused on enhancing their mobile communication strategies with clients.
Such was the view of the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) chief executive Brad Fox at the launch of a whitepaper yesterday, who said that while financial advisers who did not have a mobile approach were at a considerable disadvantage, licensees needed to enable practices to adapt.
"There are an awful lot of things to distract advisers from doing what they're supposed to do, which is advise clients," he said.
The joint AFA and Zurich whitepaper, ‘Connected Convenience', based on research done by the Beddoes Institute, showed ownership of mobile devices was higher among financial advice clients compared to the general public.
Baby boomer advice clients were using mobile devices more frequently than non-advised members of the public.
Despite advice clients being older, 77 per cent of advice clients owned a smart phone and 56 per cent owned a tablet, while only 65 per cent of the general population owned a smartphone and 37 per cent owned a tablet.
Furthermore, 62 per cent of high net worth baby boomers owned a tablet, while 73 per cent owned a tablet.
"The need to stay relevant at all times is growing, because there are so many ways for a client to be distracted away from their current adviser. So if you aren't staying in their life between the 12-monthly catch-ups, then you will not be doing 12-monthly catch-ups soon," Fox said.
Financial advisers would need to segment smart phone and tablet users to boost engagement instead of adapting a ‘one-size-fits-all' mobile strategy, Fox said.
Almost half of all clients (48 per cent) use e-mail to connect to businesses but are very selective in which businesses they provide their e-mail addresses to.
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