"At the time of writing, of the 15,000+ client fact-finds sent in 2017, over 78% were returned back to the adviser completed saving countless hours for both parties."
One way is to look at the mortgage and protection fact-finding process, a necessary if time-consuming activity to all parties. If we consider the value of an adviser is their wealth of knowledge and proficient insights, why is such a large portion of their time taken up with data entry?
Some organisations recognise and mitigate this by passing this exercise back to the client to complete, which in many respects makes perfect sense. There’s an obvious time saving by handing the majority of this to the client along with benefits of “potentially” higher levels of accuracy and acting as a signal of commitment. But many of these collection methods require rekeying into an electronic fact-find and/or sourcing system and CRM.
Our experience is that both clients and advisers recognise the benefits of the client performing the initial data entry online and as early as possible. For a client, they can complete their details in their own time on their terms. By making the data collection more informal, less prescriptive and not some monstrous form reduces the client dropping out and encourages better data and a higher number of returns. For the adviser there’s no rekeying as data is automatically audited and flushed into the adviser fact-find and sourcing system.
At the time of writing, of the 15,000+ client fact-finds sent in 2017, over 78% were returned back to the adviser completed saving countless hours for both parties. While completing an online client fact-find isn’t for everyone, the typically time-poor 45-54 year olds are the worst offenders for not completing and returning the fact-find, but more revealing is that the 25-34 and 55-64 age groups are the best!
An electronic and integrated client fact-find moves advisers away from being simply order takers and reduces the amount of time taken to fully process a mortgage. With new innovations, such as the Open Banking API where current account data can be permissively sourced, automatically filling the budget planner and confirming income details, there are numerous options to reduce the friction of collecting client data and increasing its quality. Client engagement isn’t just for marketers, tools like an integrated client fact-find are the first step towards collaboration with both the client and adviser working towards a common goal.
