In my last blog, I looked at the importance of hyper-personalisation and how the wealth management industry, with such rich resources of data at its fingertips, is ideally poised to provide customers with relevant, highly curated products and advice.

Identifying the right products for the right customer is of course crucial. But increasingly, in these very uncertain times, as the world edges out of the pandemic, people are needing, more than ever before, the very best advice. When their world has perhaps been turned upside down, they need advisers who can put their finger on exactly what is going on in their financial lives and use their experience and professionalism to suggest solutions or identify opportunities.

In these situations the power of the AI technology behind hyper-personalisation is transformational for financial advice customers. By providing their financial advisers with access to their transactional data through open banking platforms and allowing them to categorise their income and expnditure, customers’ chosen advisers can use those insights to shine a light on their finances.

Whilst today’s hyper-personalisation is driven by AI and algorithms, it is essentially a tool to assist what the best financial advisers have been doing for decades - understanding individual customers, their very specific situations and needs and then giving them the right advice. People may not want to sit across a desk from their financial advisor so much any more - but they certainly want a conversation that’s all about them.

In a competitive digital marketplace, where brands are bombarding customers with generic email marketing, the organisations that connect with their customers directly and provide personal advice are the ones that are going to stand out.

As Deloitte’s research on hyper-personalisation Connecting with Meaning highlights, customers are rejecting a generalised marketing approach. The research reports: “… three out of four customers have indicated they receive too many email promotions from brands and 69 percent have unfollowed brands they once followed on social media.”

AI driven hyper-personalisation technology by contrast, ultimately allows financial organisations to become more customer-centric, getting to the nub of what is happening in their daily financial lives and providing tailored advice.

For example, hyper-personalisation technology allows wealth management platforms to identify that a client has just stopped paying school fees and may now have a budget for investment. Or that they have downsized their home, paid off their mortgage and again may be looking for investment opportunities. It may also highlight the fact that they have lost their job or retired and need urgent advice on cashing in investments.

It’s human nature to respond with appreciation to a personalised experience - whether that’s a one-off workout created for you at the gym, an Amazon book recommendation based on your purchasing history or an investment opportunity identified by an assessment of your financial profile.

Financial advisers who are early adopters of hyper-personalisation strategies and use them to build relationships and initiate dialogues are the ones who will beat a path ahead of the competition.

According to the Deloitte research, “well executed hyper-personalisation can deliver 8 times the return on investment on marketing spend and lift sales by 10%”.

Personally speaking, I think that’s a very powerful tool indeed.

by Ross Laurie CEO, Visible Capital

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