Clearsight: Launches a Wealth Management Business with Microsoft

Customer Profile

Clearsight Wealth Management Inc., a financial services company based in Toronto, is Canada's first full-service retail brokerage firm with a focus on offering clear advice, preferred pricing and premium investment products to the emerging mass-affluent market. To keep employee effectiveness high, Clearsight needed an intuitive Customer Relationship Management tool for employees to learn quickly and use regularly to capture and access pertinent client information. T4G, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, helped Clearsight identify the best solution to meet the company's needs. Microsoft CRM integrated easily with other Microsoft-based technology at Clearsight and increased staff efficiency on a number of key tasks, from client acquisition to building brand loyalty.

Situation

Clearsight Wealth Management is anything but a typical wealth management firm. Launched in November 2003, the full-service retail brokerage firm provides the emerging mass-affluent - typically individuals with between $50,000 to 250,000 in investable assets - with a level of personal service usually reserved for more wealthy investors. Clearsight accomplishes this through efficient and cost-saving business strategies, including affinity marketing programs that target alumni groups and professional associations

An equally important cost-saving strategy for Clearsight involves IT tools and applications that empower staff to efficiently capture critical client data and use the information to provide better service. For this strategy to work, Clearsight had to find a CRM solution that made tracking client information easy and intuitive.

Clearsight was driven by a stated commitment to cost-effective, one-on-one relationships between its investment advisors and clients - a primary consideration in selecting an account-based CRM system. They needed an internal system with tight ties to Microsoft Outlook messaging and collaboration client that would allow them to target and manage their marketing campaigns and territories.

"Our affinity marketing program helped us reduce some marketing costs, but to compete we also had to find a CRM solution that could keep daily operating costs low and help us keep our clients satisfied," says Michael Burns, SVP Marketing and Affinity Relations.

Clearsight contacted Microsoft Gold Certified Partner T4G to find a system that would provide the needed functionality at an affordable cost.

Solution

Since success relied on employee adoption, Clearsight wanted an intuitive CRM solution for employees to easily learn and use on a regular basis. T4G recommended Microsoft CRM for its ability to quickly and cost-effectively customize to the unique needs of the financial services industry. The added benefit of integrating with Clearsight's Microsoft-based IT infrastructure, which includes SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange, made it an ideal fit.

"Clearsight needed its staff to quickly ramp up on a CRM application before the company launched and continue using it afterward," says Dawson Lane, Director, CRM Solutions, T4G. "Microsoft CRM was the perfect fit because its flexibility allowed us to provide an industry-focused customer-care solution fully integrated with common Microsoft productivity applications such as Outlook."

Clearsight needed the CRM tool to track the relationships that existed between accounts, including employee cross-over and clients with multiple accounts. To accomplish this goal, T4G added a third-party tracking solution called GaleForce Customer Management for Wealth Management by Vancouver based GaleForce Solutions Inc. The complete solution provided a level of functionality, reliability, and long-term support not offered by competitive products.

"In looking at the Microsoft CRM solution, we understood right away that it would be fairly easy to use relative to a lot of the other products out there," says Burns. "A lot of competitive products were either offered by unstable companies or seemed less intuitive. We found Microsoft CRM very appealing from the outset."

With no previous data to migrate, the solution was deployed to 12 users in only three weeks. When the team began securing leads earlier than expected, the Microsoft CRM solution was already operating and ready to assist.

Benefits

Microsoft CRM helped position Clearsight for long-term success in the mid-market of wealth management through increased employee efficiency. According to Burns, initial acquisition costs for the CRM solution were small compared to long-term benefits of a reliable customer tracking tool.

"The cost of acquiring Microsoft CRM wasn't a big concern," says Burns. "Our biggest concern was really the cost of not having information about a client or the cost of our advisors not making a decision properly."

Microsoft CRM helps Clearsight build brand loyalty, track prospective clients, and smoothly transfer client accounts from competitive brokers.

With the Microsoft CRM tool, Clearsight established a customized client service process to build brand loyalty, resulting in client relationships that would remain with the firm for years to come.

"In this business, brokers normally have exclusive access to client information, making it difficult for other members of the firm to respond to client requests if the primary broker is unavailable,"says Burns. "Microsoft CRM allows us to broaden that ownership so that clients always receive high levels of service and keep their business with us."

Microsoft CRM allows the firm to collect information from forms and questionnaires distributed to prospective clients via affinity marketing or through the company website.

Using Microsoft CRM, sales staff can schedule follow-up calls and personalize correspondence in a way that turns leads into secured clients.

"We're already at a point where leads are put into a sales process. Microsoft CRM allows us to schedule and complete follow up calls so that we never lose touch with prospective clients," says Burns. "They're always in a loop of some sort and advisors are constantly in contact."

In the wealth management industry, transferring accounts from one broker to another can be a lengthy and frustrating process for clients. Microsoft CRM lets Clearsight brokers ease new clients through the account transfer process with continual updates on the status of their transfer.

"Transferring a client's account from one broker to another takes about two or three weeks and is a pain for everyone involved, especially the client," says Burns. "Microsoft CRM allows us to schedule follow-ups to talk to clients, even if a transfer isn't complete. Proactive outreach like this is what really protects client relationships."

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