This article was produced in partnership with Netwealth
Automation and AI adaptability should be at the heart of developing the right customer relationship management (CRM) system as it is the key for driving business efficiency, the Netwealth Accelerate Summit has heard.
Kicking off one of three simultaneous panel discussion streams in Melbourne, Eikon Financial director and principal adviser Katerina Nicolakopoulos said for her firm automation is “not a want, it’s a must”.
“Automation is in our DNA because all of those challenges link back to the back-office processes efficiencies,” Nicolakopoulos said.
Eikon turned to Microsoft Dynamics as their CRM which they integrated into the business processes back in 2016.
“There was two reasons why we chose Microsoft – the first was because we knew that they were going to stay innovative and wow eight years later we’ve got notes, AI and all of that jazz,” Nicolakopoulos said.
“And most importantly, the ability to customize so we could tailor it for our needs. In terms of that CRM, then we have APIs and scripts and all of that links into platforms like Netwealth. Our CRM links into and pulls information from the Netwealth platform. We also link in with DocuSign and Calendly.”
But she said the “big wins” were compliance and automation.
“Any wholesale certificates, opt-in certificates and AML [anti-money laundering] reporting requirements are all automated,” Nicolakopoulos said.
“The other is reviewing scheduling which is the backbone of our business and clients will get an automated email two weeks before their reviews.”
However, another other crucial part of the firm’s systems is the design of a “fat finger check”.
In the CRM, investment changes the client has approved are housed and there is a daily check from the firm’s computer scientist that matches the transactions made by the adviser to what the client requested.
“[It’s] to see whether or not somebody’s dropped off a zero from the investment or they’ve made the wrong investment,” Nicolakopoulos said.
“That’s a daily check so we get to pick up those errors pretty quickly.”
Expert Wealth director and financial adviser Paris Bisley said his firm’s tech stack is “deep, but fairly targeted” and is centred around the Salesforce platform as the CRM.
“That was a huge investment for us,” Bisley said.
“We’ve committed over a million dollars to tech and development spend over the next three years.”
Clinton Hatcher, who is the firm’s digital innovation manager, said choosing the right CRM for the business’ purposes and objectives was an important decision.
“There are many [CRMs] out there but I feel that area is going to consolidate a little bit because there is so much development going on in the AI space and automation,” Hatcher said.
“There’s a lot of big spend happening on the larger platforms and they’ve got a lot of security and control mechanisms in place, as well as the API integrations that are being built very quickly making it easier to bring your data in. The CRM is going to be pivotal part or the central part of your business.”
Bisley said there’s “huge” automations to be had at any size business.
“We started out smaller and then tried to implement things like Calendly just to shorten that time it takes to discuss meetings,” Bisley said.
“AI choice is a big theme at the moment but customising that to hear your voice so you can put in some of your past communications and allow it to get how you would typically respond to things.”
He added that mid-tier licensees can band together and access technology in a way that larger licensees may not be able to due to legacy agreements.
“It’s a ripe time for those sorts of smaller players and AFSLs to be able to nimbly act and take advantage of a lot of this new technology,” Bisley said.
Although both firms had heavily resourced bespoke customisation of their CRMs, Nicolakopoulos said this wasn’t an exclusive prerequisite for every practice.
“You don’t have to build something from the ground up, there are a lot of great providers out there and it’s about partnering with them, leveraging off them,” Nicolakopoulos said.
“In terms of financial planning software…having been in the industry and been a paraplanner, we actually found that some of the systems out there just didn’t really cater for the way that we provided advice in that holistic approach, so we build all those systems inhouse and that led to that internal automation.”
