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 Even those advisers who do spend thousands of dollars a year to put
a CRM in place aren't making the most of it, according to a study by
the Financial Planning Association.
The systems, used to integrate client data with operations like
sales, service and marketing, can run anywhere between $300 to
$10,000 a year to buy and run, depending on how many records,
activities and data points are tracked and how many bells and
whistles the program has. But as many as 61 percent of advisers who
pay for CRM systems don’t even use them in what CRM fans say is a
most basic and useful way - to capture notes from client
conversations.
Robert Wyrick, Jr, managing partner of MFA Advisers in Houston,
Texas, is a believer. At MFA, all communications and notes
pertaining to clients and prospects alike are logged and accessible
to everyone, so teams can work efficiently even if the members are
in separate locations.
“If we have an adviser in New Jersey and another on the West Coast,
or a new adviser comes on board, anyone can open the client’s file
in the CRM and pick up where the last person left off,” he says.
Some firms, such as Redtail Technology, Gotham Tech Labs and Junxure,
sell CRM programs geared specifically for financial advisers. Costs
range from $10 a month per user for a system called Less Annoying
CRM to $75 per user monthly for Junxure Cloud CRM, and higher.
Andrew Gluck, editor of Advisors4Advisors, a practice management
website for independent financial advisers, counsels members to
create checklists within the CRM program for all of the processes
they use repeatedly, such as bringing on new clients, running
meetings and marketing. That way everyone on the team will go
through the same processes in the same way.
Deborah Fox, San Diego-based CEO and founder of Fox Financial
Planning Network, which provides consulting services to advisers,
believes it helps advisers provide the “wow factor” to their
clients.
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For example, she recommends setting one-time and recurring reminders
in the CRM that are specific to each client as soon as you bring
them on board - items like when they should take distributions from
their retirement accounts or start making funds available for
college tuition.
Wyrick uses his CRM system for marketing and keeping clients
informed. For example, if an earnings report or news of a pension
change for Exxon Mobil Corporation or Shell Oil Company employees
comes across his screen, he can email the content to everyone in the
database tagged as an Exxon or Shell employee. Wyrick tags and
segments clients in the system so every communication they receive
is relevant to them.
This has also helped him win new clients, Wyrick says. Recording
conversations he’s had with prospects — in some cases months or
years ago - and relaying useful news or remembering seemingly
mundane details such as where their child went to college helps him
eventually earn their business.
There is a learning curve that can take weeks or months while a
company sets up its CRM system and learns how to use it, but that is
well worth it. Says Wyrick: “It takes a commitment on the firm’s
part, but then it becomes a way of doing business.”
(Reporting by Robyn Post; Editing by Linda Stern and Dan Grebler)
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