The growth of enablement in financial firms
The financial services industry is experiencing a tremendous evolution. Evolving client expectations, uncertain economic conditions, and the proliferation of digital tools have fundamentally changed the way firms engage with clients.
As the industry becomes more client-centric and competitive, it’s critical for client-facing professionals to create remarkable client experiences. Financial institutions are also facing a new set of challenges. Longer buying cycles, new products and services, and complex compliance requirements mean that firms and financial professionals need to evolve to remain competitive. Those that rely on what worked yesterday will fail to adapt and win the clients of tomorrow.
Firms and client-facing teams need tools that will enable them to operate more efficiently, elevate client experiences, and optimize operations. This is why modern enablement is mission critical for success. Effective enablement provides client-facing teams the right resources, processes, and technology to win business, retain clients, and adapt to change — all at scale. Increasingly, leaders across banking, asset management, wealth management, and insurance agree that enablement is mission critical to their firm’s operations.
Unifying the tech stack with enablement
Like many other industries, the financial service industry is experiencing a digital transformation. The right mix of technology can help firms deliver high-touch experiences across digital and virtual channels, as well as in-person interactions. At the same time, the struggling economy and tightened budgets mean that firms need to make strategic investments in order to build the most modern tech stack possible.
By investing in enablement technology, firms can unify the applications they already use for maximum ROI. Enablement tech connects with customer relationship management, marketing automation, and collaboration tools. As a result, firms can connect crucial sets of data that live across different systems. Instead of trying to connect disparate pieces of information and insights to make business decisions, firms can better identify which strategies work and where opportunities lie. The right enablement tool also helps firms streamline workflows, optimize operations, and achieve key internal and external outcomes. Let’s take a closer look at some of the key business outcomes firms can achieve by making an investment in enablement.
Improve efficiency and effectiveness
One of the largest impacts enablement has is its value on efficiency. We recently surveyed more than 1,200 leaders across the United States and Europe to determine how enablement tools impact their business. The study found that 84% of those who use an enablement tech say it’s integral to operating more efficiently. Let’s take a closer look at two key reasons why this is the case.
Automate and streamline tasks
A key component of efficiency is saving time. Firms that use enablement tools can automate and streamline tasks that take up crucial time so that advisors, bankers, agents, and relationship managers can spend more time on high-value activities. In fact, firms that use enablement tools save 13 hours, or nearly two business days, each week. By automating tasks around quarterly commentary, content personalization, and approvals, client-facing teams have more time to build relationships with their clients.
Decrease new hire ramp time
Knowledgeable advisors, bankers, agents, and relationship managers who deliver relevant and helpful advice to clients are more important than ever. With higher expectations and complex financial situations, advisors need to be experts who can instill trust with their clients. However, it takes most firms nearly a year to fully ramp a new hire to productivity. This negatively impacts their time to revenue attainment and productivity.
As a result, more firms are investing in platforms that allow them to deliver training and coaching to new client-facing teammates. These tools help firms create engaging and interactive training experiences that allow new hires to develop competency and expertise quickly. Firms can also accelerate readiness with quizzes and immediate scoring to confirm that employees have retained and understand training materials. It’s worth noting that the need for training doesn’t go away once new hires ramp in their roles. Firms can also leverage enablement technology to provide essential training and coaching on an ongoing basis. This ensures client-facing teams keep their knowledge and skills up to date amid industry changes and evolving client preferences.
Enhance the client experience
The ultimate goal of enablement is to help client-facing teams provide guidance and support in various ways — from in-person meetings and phone conversations to email updates and compelling social media posts. Today’s macro-economy means that clients have more questions and need more guidance that they can trust. As a result, firms need their client-facing teams to engage meaningfully with their clients and offer a deeper level of expertise. Gartner found that more organizations are investing in tools that enable their frontline teams to find answers when clients’ needs and questions are more specialized. Enablement tools provide just-in-time access to content and even AI-powered answers to questions so reps can find the most relevant information and correct information right when they need it.
Deliver personalized content
Enablement software also ensures that client-facing teams can create highly relevant and personalized content in just a few clicks. In today’s market, growing wallet share and retaining current clients is extremely important — and difficult.
Clients already do plenty of research on their own before they even reach out to an advisor, banker, agent, or relationship manager. When they finally do, they expect information they receive to be relevant and useful to them. 85% of firms agree that clients will dismiss a seller in the first interaction if they don’t receive tailored information. Modern enablement gives client-facing teams central access to digital collateral and dynamic assets that they can edit and personalize at scale. It also gives them the chance to integrate useful data and information from a CRM and other sources for even greater customization.
