What role will technology play in improving client engagement?

Traditionally, financial institutions have approached the challenge of building and strengthening client relationships in a fairly simplistic way. Drinks, lunches and portfolio performance reports may all have a place when it comes to client engagement and persuading them that your firm is the one they should trust with their wealth, but building a long-term and engaged client base requires much more effort.

In recent years, the personalisation of services has been high on the agenda for many financial institutions. From an investment perspective, it goes without saying that if a firm can present their clients with opportunities that are well matched to their interests and risk appetite, the client is far more likely to deploy capital and engage in future investments as well.  

Historically, financial institutions have associated personalised services with limiting client engagement to face-to-face meetings and advisors developing a close understanding of their clients over a number of years. As a result, some firms perceive the use of technology as contradictory to this approach, instead seeing digitisation as a ‘detached’ and ‘cold’ method of interacting with clients. However, this overlooks the significant opportunities that digital tools, and the data they can collect, now offer firms looking to personalise their offering. 

So how does this approach work for private markets? Let’s explore some of the ways in which digital tools can help firms to present highly personalised investment opportunities to potential investors. 

Generating previously inaccessible investor insight

Knowing when a client has reviewed and interacted with an investment opportunity is a golden nugget of information that you can use to engage with them and accelerate commercial conversations. 

For example, when a deal is distributed to investors via the Delio platform, your team can view which clients have opened the email, viewed the deal information and how much time they have spent on the platform. This information is useful for relationship managers to determine investor intent and focus their outreach strategy on those clients who are demonstrating a good initial level of interest. 

Over time, these insights will become multi-layered in their sophistication. Does a particular investor show more interest in deals involving a specific asset class? Do they tend to view deal information early in the morning, late at night, or on weekends? This type of information will then enable advisors to truly understand their clients and tailor their engagement strategy. 

Delivering access while mitigating risk

When promoting illiquid deals to investors, there is an added level of complexity in assessing and documenting the suitability of the opportunity based on their regulatory profile.

Our research shows that 47% of wealth managers who are active in private markets said that ensuring that only appropriate deals were made available to investors was one of their greatest regulatory risks. So how can the use of technology mitigate this risk?

Whenever an investor is onboarded to the Delio platform, they must answer a series of questions (that can be defined by the financial institution) to create their own profile. This information is then cross-referenced against any new investment opportunities that are added to the platform. As a result, the platform will only show deals which are considered appropriate to investors when they log in

This segmentation not only reduces regulatory risk for the financial institution but enables them to deliver a far more targeted and personalised service for the investor. Not only can a firm have confidence that only compliant deals are being shared with investors, but the client can also filter opportunities based on thematic interests, ticket size and location to create their own personal wish list. 

Personalised communication at scale

Communication is probably one of the most important steps in engaging with investors. Keeping them updated about your latest investment opportunities could be a slow and disconnected process if you are waiting for your next scheduled client meeting or call. However, by using the Delio platform it’s easy to kick-start conversations and give them on-demand access to key information about investments that they may be interested in.

Presenting deals to clients is quick and easy. Key information is shared through clear and easy to understand deal cards, with clients being notified when new deals are added to the platform. These can also be proactively communicated to clients through the platform’s integrated email communication tool. Professionally designed communications can be created in minutes by using intuitive templates, while highly configurable distribution lists allow you to target large investor groups through to niche audiences based on specific profiles.  

Does technology really generate closer client relationships?

As more and more financial institutions look to offer their clients access to private markets, the use of technology is only going to grow in importance. Firms that have previously limited access to a select number of investors are now faced with the challenge of scaling their operations and can no longer rely on face to face meetings as a way of engaging with clients. Instead, they will need a centralised digital hub that allows all of their private markets activity to be accessed, tracked and managed from one place.  

By creating ‘one true view’ of how clients are engaging with investment opportunities, firms will be well positioned to manage their interactions with them more effectively. Transparency of information is key to enabling the cross-functional team work that is required in private markets, as commercial, operational and regulatory functions support different parts of the investment lifecycle. 

Using technology to drive this process as efficiently as possible will be key to helping staff focus on engaging with investors, personalising service, and building long-term trust.