The Advisor as Tech Guru, Educator, Full-Service Consultant

Role #1: Advisor as technology guru.Robo-advice alone will not serve investors well, neither now nor in the future. But robo-advice coupled with human expertise and intelligence will. New technologies represent valuable tools advisors can employ to deliver a more robust client experience. Already advisors are building mobile, virtual offices, in which they can meet clients anytime, anywhere. New platforms will facilitate meaningful interaction and engagement. Advisors can demonstrate expertise by helping investors access and navigate increasingly complex analytic tools, helping them discern relevant insight and purpose.

Role #2: Advisor as educator. Experts across the industry recognize that some — perhaps most — millennials simply don’t have the financial literacy their parents did. Accordingly, advisors will need to help clients learn how to use the ever-expanding library of tools and resources available to them. In addition, advisors will need to guide investors through the tough questions — questions computers will never be able to answer.

Consider that environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) investing is on the rise, most prominently among millennials. Although generating a return on investment is the goal, millennials also believe they should be socially conscientious with their investments. Advanced technologies can forecast trends, locate arbitrage, identify value and so on, but they can never discern the most ethically prudent way to employ investment resources to make the world a better place. Advisors will increasingly be called to serve as ethical stewards of the world, working with investors to think about how to make the biggest impact with their resources, an impact that extends well beyond the bottom line.

Role #3: Advisor as full-service consultant. New technologies and platforms are displacing the need for specialization. In the very near future, self-service investing will be standard. Anything an expert can do, a mobile app will do, too. As a consequence, a role reversal is on the horizon. Successful advisors must be comprehensive — not specialized — in their approach. In other words, as fragmented technologies fill niche markets, investors will need advisors who can help them strategize the big picture.

This means advisors will have to build a larger network of partners who can deliver exactly what their clients are looking for. And advisors will have to be fluent in financial concerns across the spectrum: insurance products, equities, managed funds, alternate investment products, crowdsourced investments, etc. In addition, advisors will need to assemble a stable of student debt experts, tax experts, estate planners and more. Advisors will rely on technologies to aggregate information into a comprehensive, 360-degree picture of each client’s total assets and liabilities, spending habits, consumer habits, life goals, career objectives and the like. The idea is that advisors can deliver value by threading together a comprehensive suite of services that make the average investor feel like a VIP.

Ultimately, immense pressure generates evolution. Advisors aren’t going anywhere and will be needed more than ever. But their roles are changing — and, we believe, for the better. Despite the present turbulence, the future is flush with opportunity. 

— Read To Connect With Tomorrow’s Clients, Focus on Closing the Industry’s Gender Gap Today on ThinkAdvisor.