What does client service look like to you?

SWS Partners focuses on using technology to deliver contemporary asset management and financial planning solutions to high net worth individuals, family offices, endowments, foundations, and other institutions. We believe that by emphasizing the application of modern technologies, we can create broad efficiencies and deliver better outcomes to clients.

What does this mean for you, the client?               

We felt—and still feel—that the service model in the financial industry is antiquated and one of misinformation.  This creates barriers to information for the client and inhibits them from achieving optimal outcomes.

Traditionally, the financial services industry talks about “transparency” and “relationships” but it has historically underestimated the role of technology in facilitating these platitudes. Lately, a common refrain is that technology is just for millennials. More than being flat out wrong, we think this is a boorish reflection of an aging industry and its general inability to deliver solutions that are aligned with a client’s best interests.

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So what should client service or investor relations look like?

For high net worth individuals and family offices, service should be done by a human financial planner that is leveraging best in class investment technology. The technology itself isn’t something that the financial professional hoards to create a knowledge gap, but rather extends to the client to indulge their intellect. We think this elevates the conversation and more closely aligns the investors with their goals and objectives.

What service shouldn’t look like!

Comparatively, client service or investor relations shouldn’t be a random phone call from a broker who wants to “check in”.  It shouldn’t be an email from an administrative assistant requesting a quarterly meeting that seeks to create the illusion of value. And it most certainly shouldn’t be about churning a portfolio to generate commissions.

Technology has made for a clear path…

The financial industry should be careful what it wishes for if transparency and relationships are actually what is sought after.  When clients have access to an investment technology platform that shows fees, returns, allocation, activity, and rebalancing as well as tax harvesting in real time, they start doing something that comes naturally: talking to their financial planner about their plan!

Throw out the broker, the assistant, and the random voicemail… investment technology can empower the client. It can elevate an inherently complex conversation. It can create broad efficiencies. It can help investors achieve better outcomes.

That’s the objective, right?