What do wealth management appointments and diet have in common? Both are all about balance. A balanced diet helps a body function optimally. Wealth management appointments need to balance the need for flexibility and self-service for individual financial advisors with the compliance needs of a financial services firm.
One study indicates that top wealth advisors spend 37% of their time in client meetings. Flexibility in how appointments are booked allows wealth managers to maximize their time while building these critical customer relationships. However, total freedom with no oversight by a financial services firm risks running afoul of compliance regulations. This is not an abstraction: in September 2022, the SEC fined 11 banks, investment firms, and their affiliates more than $1.8 billion in fines for “widespread and longstanding failures” in monitoring, maintaining, and preserving electronic communications by employees. This was specifically in reference to messages not being recorded, captured, and stored by the firms, all of which can apply to communication prior to and during an client appointment.
Adhering to standards such as ISO27001 and SOC2 are obviously critical to compliance. Most vendors try to adhere to one or the other (JRNI is certified to both!). Beyond infosec and data handling standards, there are two critical components of appointment setting workflow that you should consider for maintaining compliance:
Automatically send relevant communications to compliance systems, monitored mailboxes, secure endpoints providing a searchable and structured audit trail. This is only possible through integrations of a centrally managed appointment setting solution and the ability to configure compliant and secure communication and auditing processes.
Securely collect ‘just enough’ information, and no more. Your goal is to create a process for booking productive appointments that is easy for both customers and staff. It is recommended that you only collect minimum amount of information to schedule and route the booking. Additional information should be collected at other times and in other systems. It is recommended that you ask for email and phone number to confirm the appointment along with areas of interest to prepare staff for the appointment. Avoid collecting personally identifiable information (PII) during booking process to lessen risk. For example, we recommend you don’t ask date of birth, social security number, or pin numbers during the booking process. A centrally managed appointment scheduling system can templatize the information that is asked on digital forms.
Appointment scheduling is a critical piece of the customer experience process for wealth advisors. With a little planning, advisors can efficiently drive revenue through appointments without generating expensive regulatory violations.
