Shannon Bernasconi

Recognising the increased need – in the wake of COVID-19 – for advisers and their clients to meet digitally, WealthO2 has launched a new feature on its investor client portal to better facilitate digital meeting appointments.

“WealthO2 is an advice-led solution, so listening and responding to advisers’ needs is our focus,” says Shannon Bernasconi, WealthO2 managing director.

“It is clear that advisers will be using online face-to-face calls for their client meetings now and for the foreseeable future, and we have moved quickly to implement the functionality to facilitate this directly from the WealthO2 portal,” she says.

“The global pandemic has led many advisers and their clients to embed technology where it adds value in the advice process, and this new functionality is a natural extension of this move.

“This new feature brings advisers and clients closer when physical distancing rules are in place.  It allows clients of advisers to set up a meeting with the adviser, via the client portal, in Zoom or Acuity or whatever meeting or calendar platform the adviser uses.

“Quite simply, a client logged into their portal can schedule a meeting directly into their adviser’s calendar. It connects the clients with the advisers’ digital calendars to more easily facilitate the online face-to-face meetings.”

The technology allows for integration with the main providers such as Outlook, Google and Acuity as well as CRM and digital face to face providers like Salesforce, Zoom and the like.

WealthO2’s new feature enables ease of client / adviser connectivity, making it easy to schedule, for example, a 15 minute catch up and provide resulting compliance records of the file note and history. 

“Many online digital applications offer a recording feature so the call between clients and their advisers can be saved as a review meeting and file note. During these digital meetings advisers can share the screen with clients, whether it be a copy of the client report, or the screens from the system dashboards showing performance and income returns of the client’s portfolio.

“In the planning phase for this feature, 100 per cent of advisers canvassed said they would like this incorporated into the WealthO2 portal.

“In fact some advisers are saying that post the pandemic, they will continue the format of more regular 15 minute online meetings with clients, while keeping the face-to-face meetings for the annual review. It is seen as a change in business practice that will lead to better outcomes for clients and for advisers.”

Ms Bernasconi added the extent of the COVID-19 disruption to adviser businesses had them evaluating the value that platform providers bring more generally.

“For instance, platforms that are not able to provide bulk rebalancing of portfolios and ease of changes to all client’s portfolios intraday may not be as well regarded by advisers post this pandemic.

“If the technology of the platform provider did not assist the adviser in this ease of portfolio management in such volatile market times, it will ultimately be the clients who have suffered as a result of the implementation drag.”

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