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Video Chat - A Potential Tool To Connect With Advisors
By Saadiah Freeman
The best mutual fund and insurance company Web sites enhance the relationships between advisors and their wholesalers, strengthening advisors' sense of connection with the firm each time they log in to the site. Personalization features that show advisor's pictures and contact details of their assigned wholesalers are an important tool that many firms use to reinforce the sales relationship. An advisor who thinks of a question while browsing a firm's Web site, can easily pick up the phone and call her key contact on the internal sales desk. Photos and brief bios humanize the voice on the end of the line, which is helpful in building connections between advisors and internal wholesalers, who rarely - if ever - meet in person. But what if, instead of picking up the phone, advisors could instead contact their wholesalers via video chat, linking directly from the company's Web site?
Client service businesses in other industries are increasingly recognizing the power of video chat as a tool for delivering high-touch services remotely, at a much lower cost than in-person meetings. In the field of psychological counseling, where trust, body language and relationship-building are critical, providers like www.breakthrough.com and www.lionrockbehavioral.com exclusively operate using video chat. The format is also becoming increasingly popular for tutoring, with music, language and even makeup application teachers now offering online video sessions. Even within the relatively conservative field of financial services, video chat is beginning to gain traction; for example, Philadelphia-based startup advisory firm Veritat (www.veritat.com) has adopted an entirely video-based model for delivering financial advice.
Although free online video calls have been available for some time, recent developments in the field, particularly the launch of Google+ and the introduction of video chat functionality on Facebook, are likely to make this method of communication even more popular going forward. This presents an opportunity for innovative mutual fund and insurance companies to use video chat to build stronger relationships with advisors, particularly independent advisors and RIAs who work in smaller offices. In fact, some firms are already outfitting their internal wholesalers with webcams so as to be at the forefront of this opportunity. In addition to providing an online forum for one-on-one meetings between advisors and their wholesalers, video calls can also be used to facilitate group meetings - for example, by using the Google+ 'Hangout' feature. This could be an effective way for asset managers to share portfolio strategy and thought leadership with their clients - having an analyst or portfolio manager host a video chat with a group of advisors.
In the relationship-driven world of investment sales, video chat is a simple and cost-effective tool that could help asset managers and insurance companies connect even more effectively with their customers online.