^{By Mark Whitcroft, CEO and Co-Founder, PlannerPal}

How much admin do client meetings generate? Let’s say four client meetings a week. An hour and a half per meeting. 130 spoken words a minute. That’s around almost 47,000 words to process every week and just with clients.

Surely this is something that new technologies could help with?

We think too much of a financial adviser’s time is spent on low value tasks. Most advisers spend over 40% of their time on admin. To take on more clients, practices need to reduce the time spent typing up meeting notes, filling in forms, creating file notes, or writing fairly standard emails.

It all detracts from time that could be spent providing clients with better advice or growing your practice. It also creates team bottlenecks, where information just isn’t readily available. It’s often buried in lengthy transcripts of conversations, or hasn’t made it into the CRM at all. When details are held in the Adviser’s head, it makes it difficult for the rest of the team to operate efficiently.

So how can technology help you shift the focus from low value to high impact work? In the FinTech Futures Trend report, 97% of respondents said they were considering how AI and analytics can help their organisations. This technology was cited as a high priority for investment.

The Lang Cat’s sixth annual State of the Advice Nation report cited more than half of firms (58%) are planning to weave AI into their advice process in the next five years. Perhaps more significantly, a third of the industry is either currently using AI or has plans to do so in the next year.

Your competitors are either using or thinking about AI. You too can tap into the transformation that AI is bringing to financial advice. PlannerPal harnesses this new technology to improve your daily working life. We can automate repetitive, low value tasks and mundane activities.

So you have more time for meeting your own clients, and more capacity to bring in new ones.

Compared to your current method, introducing AI will:

• Quicken the speed and accuracy in handling a request or getting back to a client.
• Reduce admin costs across your firm’s infrastructure.
• Help to manage career progression by tracking how much time next generation planners are able to spend with clients.
• Reduce complaints stemming from poorly documented advice.

For example with PlannerPal you can reduce fact find filing from hours to moments. Every firm and sometimes every adviser within a firm has a different fact form template or method of getting it filled in. Sometimes two people attend client meetings just so one person can take the notes. PlannerPal will create an instant client meeting transcription that is searchable by AI. Matching the conversation to auto-complete the fact find document amongst other documents or letters. So you can access all of your key information immediately, with no tedious typing up or listening back or need to double up for meetings.

Designed for the industry, we understand the nuances of the financial advice sector in the UK. Wading through Microsoft Teams transcripts is a frustrating experience. Key information isn’t easily searchable, details go unseen. It’s time-consuming and difficult. Now, if you want to know which of your 100 clients is having a grandchild this year, you can find this information in seconds, even while you’re on the go.

It will also mean you can respond faster to your clients. Too often the market moves before your client responds and they might have changed their minds by then. PlannerPal creates standard client response email drafts in seconds, for you to refine, so you can follow-up with your client promptly. It will improve speed and accuracy in all your client communications.

Imagine a client receiving immediate, tailor-made insights. You can explain detailed investment advice in easily digestible language with your firm’s distinctive voice. This new technology will super charge your role and enhance the experience for your clients. It will remove the need for juggling tedious tasks and give you more time to develop meaningful relationships at scale.

Although AI has made significant strides, it has not reached the level of expertise found in skilled and regulated professionals. The realm of financial advice currently demands intricate decision-making and analysis, coupled with the nuances of human interaction — a domain where the expertise and qualifications of experienced professionals excel.

That said, we think AI is set to revolutionise the way financial advisers do business. It will usher in a world in which technology relieves you of the mundane aspects of your work. Freeing you up to concentrate on the complementary work of the invaluable insights and empathy offered by human advisers to their clients.

The future is already here! The 47,000 words you’re processing every week? Let AI help with that!

PS, If you’d like to be part of the innovation, Join the PlannerPal Community. We’re leading the way to a more efficient future in financial advice. Sign up for a free trial.

‍