As part of its Connected Wealth Report research series, Advisor360° surveyed 300 financial advisors and executives at large broker-dealers, registered investment advisors and bank trust companies across the U.S. for their perspectives on the impact of technology on their business and the industry.
The latest research from Advisor360°, a provider of integrated technology for enterprise wealth management firms, reveals that 92% of advisors would jump ship over bad technology. In fact, 44% say they already have.
The findings make it clear that the next generation of wealth managers expects more from their tech stack. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of survey respondents believe their technology setup needs improvement. They cite bad data as the most pressing problem, though a lack of automation and AI-enabled tools for improving workflows ranked a close second.
The latest edition of Advisor360°’s Connected Wealth Report series explores the views of financial advisors and how technology impacts their work. The report is based on the company’s survey of 300 wealth managers, aged 36.5 years old on average, managing an average of $40 million in client assets.
“The advisors in our survey expressed candid concerns about their technology and the data driving it, making clear that both impact the growth of their practice and their overall satisfaction,” said Jeff Schwantz, Chief Revenue Officer of Advisor360°. “If attracting and retaining advisors is a priority for enterprises, providing them an integrated, automated platform experience is essential.”
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Modern Technology Has Advantages
The findings point to growing advisor dissatisfaction over the tools they have for working with clients and winning new ones. Fifty-eight per cent of survey respondents say they lost business over the last year because of bad technology, while 92% have lost business over the past two years.
Conversely, great technology has advantages. Ninety-three per cent of respondents who ranked their technology as state-of-the-art report gaining new clients as a result of a competitor’s bad technology.
Advisors also recognize technology’s role in the client experience—more than half (57%) consider their end-client capabilities to be a weakness. Indeed, they call out new client onboarding as the area of highest priority for improved efficiency.
Advisors Want to Meet Clients Where They Are
Advisors’ flexible approach to technology stems from a desire to connect and communicate with clients of all ages where they are. For example, 61% of respondents say video conference calls are more effective than in-person meetings with younger clients, while 85% say in-person meetings work better for older clients.
All advisors (100%) say access to social media tools at work is non-negotiable—though there is disagreement over which applications are must-haves. Six out of 10 want access to either LinkedIn or X/Twitter, while more than half (56%) consider Facebook important. Just 48% of respondents want work access to YouTube, despite investors giving YouTube the highest marks for advisor usage in an earlier survey.
“The right technology choices, together with clean data, can unleash productivity like we’ve never seen before. To tap into this, firms need the right technology partners—ones that are forward thinking and able to satisfy multiple generations of investors and the advisors who serve them,” said Schwantz. “As our research shows, technology can be expensive to purchase, deploy and adopt, but the cost of inertia is much higher when you consider the revenue impact of losing advisors.”
About the Survey
As part of its Connected Wealth Report research series, Advisor360° surveyed 300 financial advisors and executives at large broker-dealers, registered investment advisors and bank trust companies across the U.S. for their perspectives on the impact of technology on their business and the industry. Survey participants were employed by enterprise wealth management firms across the industry with an average of $9 billion in assets under management and more than 1,000 employees. Respondents to the telephone to web-based survey were 36.5 years old on average with an average of $40 million in assets under management. The survey was fielded between September and October 2023 by Coleman Parkes Research on behalf of Advisor360°. Advisor360° and Coleman Parkes are separate and unaffiliated organisations.
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