When Johnston Carmichael Wealth overhauled its technology recently, it did so with one thing at the forefront of its mind: client service.
The Scottish advice business, which is a subsidiary of Johnston Carmichael Chartered Accountants, has built a bespoke wealth platform and app, which allows it to keep clients engaged all year round and forms a central part of the client journey from early on in the relationship.
The tool has been designed first and foremost with the client in mind, says Martin Hendry, chartered financial planner in the Glasgow office. Secondly, it has been created to make it easier for the financial planners.
"I think we do [client engagement] well here," says Hendry, who joined JC Wealth in January 2023, from what had been 1825 but by then was Abrdn Financial Planning.
"One of the things that this [technology] covers off, and is a good outcome for both the client and us, is even if we're sitting down for a meeting and just want to bring everything up on screen, we're not having to log into different websites.
"Everything just feeds into one place. Normally, if you've got different pensions in various places, you'd have to log into different platforms all the time."
How it works
The wealth hub acts as a two-way portal between adviser and client, providing a summary of every aspect of a client's finances, from their investments - regardless of which platforms they are held on - to savings, pensions, insurance policies, bank accounts, credit cards, store cards, mortgages, loans and property.
It also functions as a communications tool between adviser and client, allowing for messages and documents to be sent back and forth securely.
Any post triggers a notification in the client's app that a document has been uploaded. "It's just a bit more forward-thinking than just sending out an email and sending out a password," says Hendry.
The app also has a built-in performance chart, which allows clients to view the performance of their portfolio at any point in time, even remotely on their phones.
There's a certain irony in that, agrees Hendry, considering the firm's strong focus on long-term financial planning, rather than short-term transactional investing.
"It's one of these things, we want to be really tech friendly in the industry and we want to make it easier and better. But when it comes to the actual part of making investment recommendations, you're always hammering home the message that you have to take a long term view if you're investing money," Hendry says.
"So you're kind of positioning long term, long term, long term, and then giving people access that they can check every day, which is the polar opposite.
"But then that's ... the world we live in, the world we live in is where someone wants to pick up their phone and check their banking, check their portfolios, book a train ticket, book a holiday, so you need to have that technology in place."
