Invested in Technology

John Mott: Looking back, the thing that was big in technology in 2005 was when Google introduced Google Earth with mapping capabilities. That seems so plain and simple these days. Our ability to touch more prospects, clients, participants has increased dramatically due to technology.

A big differentiator over the last 15 years is that the firm has a site from where we can pull everything for reports to send to our clientele. It’s a fantastic reporting system we didn’t have before that is completely technology driven. In the past, we had to cobble things together on our own. It was a little mish mash and didn’t look all that professional. Even though we tried to pretty things up, it was difficult. Now the reporting system is driven and customized for the corporate clients we have.

Steve Wilt: Technology has a lot to do with the scale we have today. Back in 2005, when I was with Merrill Lynch, I jokingly said that for every five plans I took on, I had to hire another person for my team. I always had the feeling that each plan was so heavy in its own right that you had to add more people to the equation. We created all of our own quarterly reviews out of PowerPoint. We input the number from performance demographics into a presentation, and that was really heavy.

I moved to CAPTRUST, which has a centralized model, in January 2009. CAPTRUST has about 50 offices, but all of the research, reviews, vendor benchmarking and design is done in our Raleigh headquarters and pushed out to us in the field. It’s all automated. The reviews show up, for instance. I proof them. I approve them. And then we’re good to go.

There are a small number of firms that are providing these types of services for their advisers. At CAPTRUST, we’re all employees; we’re shareholder-owned, and the vision that our CEO Fielding Miller had over 20 years ago was to build a centralized model to support advisers, and advisers would come to the firm because of that. I think it’s pretty unique in the industry that we have all of these things built out the way we do and that we continue to reinvest in our business and build out more and more tools to benefit clients. This model gives me tremendously more time to spend with our clients and to have a bigger book. You can have more clients if you aren’t doing all of these tasks.

David Griffin: We’re unique in that the firm works within a cloud-based model. When I went out on my own and started Atlanta Retirement Partners, I was able to hire employees who were working in corporate America, for different retirement plan providers, at a bit of a discount, just to give them their life back. To allow them flexibility, to free them from sitting in traffic every morning. I had this idea that if we were being built to serve institutional customers—401(k), 403(b), 457 plans—we go to see all of our customers. They never come to see us. Why have the expense of an office?

I thought: If I can hire the right people, and we can all work remotely, it would be efficient and my employees would be happier. In the face of this coronavirus, for instance, we’re perfectly suited for doing this type of business. It works very well. If there’s a downside to our model, it’s that I can’t hire young people who need a lot of training or hand-holding because we don’t have a physical office we’re reporting to that lets us spend time face to face with each other. Instead, I’ve hired people who are experienced, who I can trust, who I know can work independently, who are self-starters.

Griffin: Technology has truly enhanced the participant experience over the past several years. The industry has moved toward a “simplification” approach to allow employees easy access to data. The providers have also striven to make apps and websites easier to navigate. They’ve learned, through research and behavior, that people typically are looking to see their balance, the most recent trend of their account, and whether they’re on track. Consequently, these are the three items that one sees quickly when landing on the page or app.

As I reflect on technology and its influence, one area of concern is loans. The industry has made it almost too easy to model a loan and subsequently have a loan issued. The old days of an employee having to approach human resources [HR] largely has fallen by the wayside. I think this has done a disservice to plan participants. Loans shouldn’t be allowed in retirement plans. As advisers, we are all aware of that. So, I think, moving forward, it should be something viewed as a last resort and not as a second step to one’s checking account.

Wilt: Webinars, recorded webinars, Brainshark [products], video, are all good tools now. Short, bite-size videos are great tools. Screen-sharing technologies and outbound email campaigns make a big difference.

Mott: Morgan Stanley at Work’s Financial Wellness program launched last May. The platform consists of a digital portal experience with an assessment tool to help measure an employee’s financial fitness. We analyze the data through the assessment and provide participants with options for engaging with an adviser, a virtual adviser, or through [our] Access Investing.

Also, in the summer of 2018, Morgan Stanley launched Next Best Actions [NBA]. It allows us to send out, on a continuing basis, ideas from the retirement side of the company for participants. It’s automatic; I just push a button. It doesn’t take me, like it used to, an hour or two to email to all of our clients information that may affect them or how they think about the market.

Griffin: The key to communication … we’re in the South—there are a lot of eye-to-eye meetings that are necessary. One thing we’ve been working on with customers is what the frequency of meetings should be. And if we’re going to alternate a physical meeting with a virtual meeting, we use technology to accomplish that.

There are a lot of tools, right now, available to plan advisers to work more remotely among your teams and with your customers: technology such as Zoom and different videoconferencing technology. We find that tools such as GoToMeeting and UberConference have been easy for collecting people on a call or in the same webinar where we can see each other and share information. Microsoft Teams is another great tool that helps from a management perspective and is a way for your team to collaborate on projects and interact. The technology, if you want to work remotely, is out there and will be more popular as time goes on.

Wilt: For the last six years, I’ve done all of my reviews on an iPad. As opposed to having books printed, bound and shipped, we go to committee meetings, and if there are five committee members, I go with five iPads and pass them out. Loaded on the iPads, we may have one document, if it’s a standard review, or we might have three or four documents.

The report PDF is sent out to the client ahead of time. We bring it and go through the document on the iPad. Then they don’t have all of those books that they don’t know if they can throw away or not.

Getting it ahead of time is a big deal for clients. Often, advisers show up with the review, and it’s the first time the client is seeing it. Especially upmarket, we’ve learned that our clients want to see things ahead of time. You’d be surprised how many of them have spent a good deal of time on it before we get there. We walk away from the review, we draft minutes, and then we have one or two follow-up items, and it makes it really efficient.

Griffin: The parts of an adviser being “low-tech” will always be the personal touch. Technology has allowed us to become more efficient, and advisers can now serve over 100 plans and reach thousands of participants, using technology. At the end of the day, we’re in a relationship business. Building a bond with clients over time and taking a genuine interest in their lives makes our business fun and leads to long-term clients. That won’t change.

Wilt: I would say, that personal service to plan sponsors and to participants. Regarding plan sponsors, my book is very local, so I continue to deliver quarterly reviews in person. However, we are seeing a trend toward using tools such as Zoom and others to deliver reviews remotely. When a plan sponsor needs help, we’re still picking up the phone or scheduling in-person meetings to deliver fiduciary advice.

For plan participants, we believe in face to face, not interface. Through CAPTRUST Participant Wellness and Advice, we continue to deliver in-person group meetings and one-on-one meetings for employees. This is done on-site or through our participant call center. Plan participants will always need personal interaction for the advice they need and deserve.

Mott: Technology helps us with setting up the appointments. But, being from the South, relationships and face-to-face meetings are more important than Zoom. We get out front and see our people. We travel. We travel more now than we ever have before.

The tech far surpasses anything we’ve had before, but, up until now, with the response to the coronavirus, we would never use Zoom or any other technology to communicate with our clients for our quarterly meetings.

With Zoom, for instance, the slight movements, body language, the look on a client’s face, smiles, you just can’t pick those up. It’s important to have the ability to see what’s important to them and what is not important, based on their body language. You miss that with Zoom, and it’s a big deal for us.