Iain Petrie, senior manager of propositions and marketing at Scottish Widows, says its business development managers engage with advisers to understand their business, and use this insight to show how the platform’s capability can enable good client outcomes.
“We support advisers on specific cases, providing technical support with complex cases, and supply tools and collateral to support advisers’ conversations with their clients.
“We deliver training on the platform through our onboarding consultants, who supplement the proposition knowledge provided by our BDMs and technical specialists. And we deliver a range of CPD and thought leadership content, sharing our expertise and demonstrating to advisers how our platform can enable them to deliver for their clients.”
Pourshoushtari also recommends investigating the platform’s client-facing proposition, such as:
- what forms the client-facing services take – an app or a web portal, for example; and
- what functionality clients can take advantage of, such as authorising transactions, viewing reports and secure messaging, and what that looks like to them.
“Some advisers tell us there can be a disconnect between the client-facing and adviser-facing systems, leading to challenges in helping the client when things go wrong,” she says.
Is client-facing literature helpful?
Besides giving clients their own access to accounts, providers will typically offer literature designed for clients, such as a guide to the platform itself or the charges it levies.
“Our literature library is designed to allow advisers to self-serve as much as possible, linking to important forms and documents as well as client-facing documentation,” says Petrie at Scottish Widows.
“We empower advisers by offering literature covering key topics such as a ‘client platform guide’ and ‘guide to investment risks’ for client conversations.
“We design the literature to enable advisers to use as part of their client conversation, explaining the benefits of the proposition and how it helps meet the client’s unique financial objectives.”
Georgia Ball, a wealth planner at Kingswood Group, says whether client-facing literature available from platforms is used depends on the literature and platform in question.
“Some providers offer simple, client-friendly literature that can help reinforce advice or information given to the client by explaining something in an alternative way.
"On the other hand, some platforms have literature that is dense, heavy and uses technical language that will only act to confuse the client.
“Where the provider has got the balance of informative but digestible right, it can be a great additional aid to provide to a client ahead of or following a meeting to give them something to refer to.”
Georgiana Brown, research director at Boring Money, which has tested literature that advisers may share with clients, shares the following five tips for good client-facing literature:
