Face to face versus virtual
Discussing how firms can operate in this new ‘digital world’ while still developing and maintaining their personal relationships, Montgomery outlined how he thinks advisers can get the right balance.
“We were already in a space where video advice and the use of tech was already starting to be adopted,” he said.
“There was obviously a massive acceleration of that and within our own advice business, we're starting to see a shift as 75 per cent of our business or database is still being done on digital video tech and not face to face.
But he does not think work processes will go "completely digital". "The great thing is that the technology and the new ways of working have been developed and been embraced to a level where we have that flexibility now.
“That is what we’ll see moving forward and certainly more adoption of it but finding that right balance between what an adviser wants and what a client wants out of that relationship.”
Duckworth agreed as he said with technology it was more about enhancing the client experience, “automating the things that are quite frictional when we’re building that relationship with the client."
“For me, I think that the new trends will be gamification, that creates interactivity and an enhanced experience because I think sometimes our role, especially via technology, can seem a little dry, so enhancing that given immediate feedback in enhancing the experience and understanding as to why I'm going through the journey will become the dominant trend.
“It will sit back on how each firm and everybody thinks about managing data to nudge clients in the right way to take action, but it seems far more natural than perhaps we would have done historically.”
sonia.rach@ft.com
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