Merrill Wealth Management is the latest firm to try a digital matchmaking tool to connect consumers with a financial adviser.
The firm launched Merrill Advisor Match Tuesday to address what it says is a need for a modern approach for investors looking for financial advice. Of the one-third of affluent Americans who don’t work with a financial adviser, 22% say they don’t know how to find one, according to survey conducted by market research company Concentrix on behalf of Bank of America Merrill. Fourteen percent say reaching out to an adviser is intimidating, and 10% say they can’t find an adviser who understands their unique needs.
Advisor Match serves up a list of advisers who fit an investor’s answers to a handful of questions covering engagement preferences, desired style of guidance and various personality traits. Prospects can then digitally schedule a meeting with the adviser of their choice, and information collected from the questionnaire is automatically populated in Salesforce (a client relationship management software).
“The results are presented in a streamlined manner [that is] really enabling the prospect to compare and contrast,” said Jennifer Auerbach-Rodriguez, head of client acquisition, retention and strategic growth initiatives at Merrill, who added that the challenges in finding the right adviser are amplified among people of color and the LGBTQ+ community. “We solve for this by helping people learn more.”
While personal recommendations will always be an important way people are introduced to a financial adviser, 62% of those who aren’t working a financial adviser would be the first in their family to do so, said Kirstin Hill, Merrill’s chief operating officer.
“For those who don’t have a connection in their personal network, Merrill Advisor Match uses research and qualitative analysis to break down barriers to professional financial advice,” Hill said.
The questionnaire was created by a body of research Merrill conducted about two years ago, said Julie Smith, business strategy manager at Merrill. The wirehouse interviewed thousands of advisers and clients to identify which attributes are present in successful adviser-client relationships.
“There is a method and reason behind each question,” Smith said.
Financial advisers answer a similar questionnaire, and Merrill’s platform automatically populates the information into a public-facing profile for the adviser. Thousands of Merrill advisers already have completed profiles, Auerbach-Rodriguez said.
Merrill is far from the only firm to attempt to apply online dating-style techniques to help foster connections between prospects and advisers. Edward Jones launched a matchmaking tool in 2020, and there are several independent technologies on the market hoping to help advisers with lead generation, such as Harness Wealth, Lasso and Wealthramp.
The problem is that it's increasingly difficult for consumers to distinguish financial advisers from each other, according to Michael Kitces, co-founder of the XY Planning Network, which has its own digital search function to match consumers with advisers.
“As a result, most adviser search portals for consumers drive clients to search by zip code — effectively turning driving convenience into the primary adviser niche to differentiate from all other not-quite-as-conveniently-local advisers,” Kitces wrote in InvestmentNews in 2020. “In fact, the irony is that even as some adviser search tools try to give consumers more ways to distinguish among advisers — e.g., by choosing various topical specialties like retirement planning, estate planning or charitable planning — “comprehensive” advisers tend to check all the boxes (in the hopes of getting a chance at every client), so that consumers likely end up overwhelmed with an indistinguishable number of choices and still can’t figure out how to winnow down the list of whom to work with.”
“Or stated more simply, it’s difficult for consumers to differentiate among advisers who aren’t even willing to differentiate among themselves!” Kitces wrote.
Relationships are key to our business but advisors are often slow to engage in specific activities designed to foster them.
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