Published in The Globe and Mail on March 2, 2026
Wealth management firms are investing in technology to deliver frictionless experiences to clients. Although these investments are making it easier to tackle important financial planning tasks, they’re also making it less of a hassle for investors to change advisors. As a result, advisors can no longer rely on inertia as a retention strategy.
Traditionally, investors who wanted to make major changes to their financial management faced significant paperwork and delays. Today, many operational inefficiencies that once caused headaches for clients have been automated away and digital tools have eliminated cumbersome and duplicative paperwork.
These innovations have made it easier to make new investments, change portfolio allocations, and set up long-term financial plans. They have also made it easier to move assets to another firm, switch to a new advisor or, in some cases, to go it alone.
Advisors can no longer rely on inertia as a retention strategy. By making it easier for investors to move their accounts, these innovations are forcing advisors to improve their offerings if they want to retain and attract clients and assets. When switching becomes easy, loyalty must be earned every day through relevance, responsiveness, and trust.
Wealth management firms and their advisors must understand that modern investors are judging them on much more than just financial performance and fees. The entire experience, from onboarding to the day-to-day grind of building and preserving wealth, creates or destroys trust and loyalty.
Wealth managers are still adjusting to these rising expectations. Many firms simply aren’t prepared to deliver service at this level, still relying on disconnected legacy systems that require investors to re-enter information, navigate manual steps, and receive communications that don’t align with their preferences.
These points of friction were the norm a decade ago, but now competitors committed to the customer experience are circling. These firms are distinguishing themselves from slower-moving rivals before they even land a client.
Using data management systems and digital prospecting tools often powered by artificial intelligence, these firms are reaching out to investors via the prospects’ preferred communication channels (social media or e-mail, for example), with information and messages relevant to their unique situation, life stage, and investment goals.
Delivering this type of personalized information is a way of reducing friction for investors. For both clients and prospects, a constant flow of generic and often uninteresting communication from financial services firms clogs their e-mail inboxes and social media feeds.
