Case study

Advice business: Vove Financial

Location: Glenelg, South Australia

Client base: 300+ (clients of accumulators and retirees)

Age of practice: 12 years

 

In 12-months, Vove Financial transitioned 90% of its client base to a client portal, reaping a range of benefits that have enhanced client engagement, referrals, back office, and its bottom line.

For the past three years, South Australian-based Vove Financial has been considering adopting a client portal.

Its original motivations were to use it as a point of differentiation, to help facilitate client engagement and to build the brand. It also wanted it to look good.

However, over the past 12-months, and after a couple of clients experienced cyber security incidents, Vove Financial became more focussed on the security benefits of a client portal.

“We had a couple of clients who had some close shaves and keeping client data secure became more and more important,” said Malcolm Simpson, Director and Financial Planner, Vove Financial.

Deciding on a provider

Following a review of market options, the business decided on myprosperity because they considered it the best client portal solution in market and liked that it was backed by HUB24.

“One of our biggest concerns was to land on a solution only for it to become null and void,” said Matt Hill, Director and Financial Planner, Vove Financial.

The myprosperity app was also a selling point and the ability to brand the client portal and customise the interface were attractive.

 

Client portal has positive business impact

According to Hill, the impact on the business of introducing a client portal has been ‘profound’, positively benefiting client experience, support staff productivity and turnaround times for documents, such as fee consent forms.

“We have much faster turnaround on paperwork coming back,” said Hill. “There is a lot of paperwork and things to sign and the quicker and easier we can make that for the client, helps us to implement advice and to meet our compliance requirements.”

It has also strengthened relationships between advisers and their clients, as advisers can track when clients log in and how they engage with the platform, creating additional touch points and meaningful opportunities for conversation.

 

Gateway to security and client conversations

The security and encryption features have enabled Vove Financial to position the client portal as a secure, all-in-one hub for clients’ information.

Its flexibility also enables clients to add their own folders, which is helping to broaden the conversation to the generational wealth transfer.

“We are using the portal to interact with clients and to secure and book appointments on the app, but ultimately a lot of clients are adding their own folders and estate planning docs so they can share information,” said Simpson. “This then merges into the transfer of wealth and ‘can I talk to your children?’.”

 

Cost benefits of client portal

According to Simpson, the introduction of a client portal has created cost savings for the business.

“It’s not always possible to get fee forms back face to face,” he said. “Now, we can do it via the portal which is quicker and obviously better for cashflow, revenue and the bottom line of the business.”

Further, the costs associated with using an external digital document signing provider have been dramatically slashed.

“It has been a good move for the business,” said Simpson.

To find out more about how Vove Financial implemented the transition to the myprosperity client portal, click here.