People have needed insurance and financial products long before computers were invented. But now technologies like automation and the cloud are well and truly here, financial advisors that fail to adjust to innovations risk falling behind — or even getting replaced entirely by AI.
The pandemic accelerated the digital transition, and in 2021, around 40% of consumers used virtual tools to interact with insurance agents. Are you part of this revolution or swimming against the tide?
If you’re keen to digitize your operations but unsure where to get started, don’t worry. We’ll run through the top must-have tech tools for financial advisors in Singapore.
Insurance is a document-heavy area, from a policy’s terms and conditions to its claim forms. Yet most customers take out a policy and forget about it — until they experience an emergency and realize they don’t know where to find any of their documentation. At this point, financial advisors can expect to receive stress-filled emails and phone calls.
Technology is here to save the day. Cloud technology allows financial advisors to put relevant digital documents on a network their clients can access through their computer or a mobile app, which is more convenient for both parties.
Do you find that 80% of the queries you receive are frequently asked questions? Automated chatbots use machine learning to identify these questions and give the answer.
This shouldn’t replace customer service completely, but it means clients can instantly find what they need in an urgent situation instead of going through unnecessary back-and-forth with agents. It also means they can get help 24/7 and not just during your working hours.
In turn, this reduces service costs and boosts client retention for financial advisors.
Frequently asked questions aren’t the only element of customer service you can automate. Scheduling assistants connect with your calendar automatically so you can share your availability with clients. This means they can book meetings (whether online, in-person, or phone calls) during the time slots you have empty — encouraging more prospects to book and reducing the amount of time you have to spend arranging them. Clients will have the chance to select their needs when they book, so you can prepare accordingly.
Some scheduling assistants also allow you to hold online meetings through the same tool instead of using a third-party software, which streamlines everything further. More customers are happy to have virtual meetings than a few years ago, and offering them can be a great way to find new customers
Data is a crucial part of running any business, and it’s particularly important for insurance agents, who need to understand who their clients are and what needs they have — such as assets, salary, and objectives.
Technology can collect this information for you and share it between relevant tools or software using cloud technology. This cuts down on your data entry work and makes it easier for you to do your job.
A simple example is creating digital forms using templates and sending them to clients to gather the information you need.
Other tools can create a landing page or online profile for you and collect information about the people who visit that site and the actions they take. For instance, did they find you through social media or Google search? These are useful insights for your marketing as you’ll know which platforms to focus your attention on, and which ones you need to optimize the most.
Customer management systems aren’t only for financial advisors, but they are possibly the most powerful suite of tools you can use to grow your client base and serve your existing customers.
In one place, you can track exactly who your customers and leads are, the meetings you have coming up, who has paid you, and more. You can often split customers up into segments too — for instance, former clients, prospects, and clients you’re currently working with. This makes it easy for you to send email campaigns tailored to their needs and more.
Plus, many customer management systems involve integrations with other tools, meaning you can sync data between all the programs (such as analytics about your clients).
You don’t need technology to offer your clients rewards for their loyalty or referrals, but it certainly makes the process easier. Instead of asking new customers to tell you if they’ve been referred, tracking it yourself, and then rewarding the person who referred them, technology can handle everything.
Many pieces of software will give tailored links to customers that they can share with their friends and family. Whenever someone uses the link, the software will track it automatically and let you know — and once the customer has met the requirements of the referral program, the person who referred them will receive the reward automatically.
Plus, these digital systems usually give customers full visibility about the status of their referrals, which increases trust.
Like it or not, social media has become crucial to running a business. Yet staying on top of social media profiles can be a time-consuming and tedious job.
A recent Strait Times article suggested that LinkedIn as a social media platform not only serves as sales purposes, but also recruitment purposes for insurance agency directors.
Fortunately, many tools can link to social media sites, allowing you to schedule your posts. This makes it easier to plan out your content in advance and post at optimal times for engagement without this task taking up valuable mental space. Plus, you’ll be able to analyze the performance of each post so you can tweak the type of content you post and when you post it.9 mus
If you don’t have social media yet, many tools remove the entry barriers to getting involved.
So far, we’ve focused on tools that help you to serve your customers better or attract new leads. But what about your own work processes? Project management tools help you stay on top of everything from client meetings to preparing policies to carrying out activities to grow your business.
If you run a company or agency, you can also add further collaborators to your project management software so that everybody knows exactly what they need to do and by what date.
Your online presence is such an important part of running your business — googling your name isn’t just reserved for celebrities. Whether someone has left a poor review for you or raved about your services, chances are you want to know about it. Yet most people don’t find the time to do so, especially given there are so many reviews sites now.
Tech tools make it easier to stay on top of your web presence by automatically monitoring the web for certain keywords. Then, they send you automated emails or notifications about these posts so that you can take action or respond as needed.
Some may fear that technology tools are coming for our jobs, and this might be true one day. But until that day comes, the best thing any financial advisor can do is modernize the way they carry out their job to provide the best, most convenient service possible for clients — and hopefully make their own job easier in the process.
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