The final two outcomes of the Consumer Duty are closely linked, in that whilst the Consumer Understanding outcome requires firms to provide clients with the tools and information necessary to make informed decisions, the Consumer Support outcome then ensures that clients are able to act on those decisions and get the most from the products and services that they are paying for.
The Consumer Understanding outcome can be heavily supported by a powerful tech stack, with custom reporting, client segmentation and communication at the centre of meeting the outcome effectively. On the other hand, the Customer Support outcome is much more reliant on the customer service provided by your firm, although ensuring that any client-facing technology is accessible and easy to navigate provides a strong foundation.
In this article, we’ll explain how you can utilise FE CashCalc and FE Analytics to comply with these final two outcomes.
Efficiently tailor and distribute client communications
A key component of the Consumer Understanding outcome is that clients receive ‘the information they need, at the right time, and presented in a way they can understand’. As an adviser, you will therefore need to ensure that you have the framework in place to meet these obligations and effectively provide the essential information to your clients.
FE CashCalc assists you with tailoring your communications as well as efficiently distributing them.
The customisable reports within FE CashCalc allow you to easily choose which sections of a report to include or remove based on your client’s individual needs. This not only provides a tailored experience for your client, but also supports their understanding by removing unnecessary sections that would only distract from the primary focus.
In addition, FE CashCalc enables you to easily segment your client base using the tagging functionality. This ensures each client group receives the information that is best suited to them. Tags are fully customisable, and you can add as many or as few as needed to each client, ensuring that whatever the criteria, your clients can be accurately segmented. These tags then enable you to fully support each client individually, by reminding you of key attributes or support needs at a glance.
Furthermore, you can then filter your clients by tags and bulk send necessary communications, saving you time and supporting you in meeting Consumer Understanding requirements by enabling you to tailor communications to client segments.
Generate visual cashflow plans that are easy to understand
Presenting a financial plan in an engaging and easy to understand format can be difficult, but with FE CashCalc’s visual cashflow models, you can easily demonstrate what your client’s financial future looks like. This is important, as a key requirement of the Consumer Understanding outcome is to ensure all information is presented in a way clients can understand, making cashflow modelling software an invaluable tool.
With FE CashCalc’s cashflow modeller, you can demonstrate to clients in real time how your advice will benefit them, and show them the effects of different decisions, enabling them to make an informed choice and take control of their financial future.
Produce powerful client-friendly reports
Provide your clients with all of the information that they need with fully customisable investment reports in FE Analytics. Our Custom Portfolio Report Builder allows you to build and save your own report templates, enabling you to generate tailored reports for each of your client segments in seconds once you have designed the framework.
When generating reports for your clients, you have the option to include personalised commentary, which is incredibly beneficial in supporting client understanding. Your opening commentary gives you the opportunity to clearly walk your client through the data that they will see in the report – outlining the key information as well as explaining any parts that may be difficult to understand.
In providing this information at the beginning, it allows your client develop a better understanding and make informed decisions. Furthermore, FE Analytics also provides the option to include a glossary, further supporting your clients in understanding the information presented and what it means for them.
The Consumer Understanding outcome also links closely with the Price and Value outcome – as you need to ensure your clients are equipped with the necessary information about relevant costs and charges, and more importantly that they are able to understand it. The costs and charges calculators in FE Analytics effectively help with this, and you can read about them in more detail in our Price and Value article.
Support clients with an easy to use secure portal
The Consumer Support outcome requires you to enable clients to get the most from the advice process and act on their informed decisions without facing unreasonable barriers. Whilst this outcome relies largely on the customer support provided by your firm, it can be supported by ensuring that any technology required to be used by clients is user friendly and easily accessible.
FE CashCalc’s client portal supports clients by enabling remote onboarding – an invaluable feature for vulnerable clients who may need assistance with completing forms or finding the necessary information. Equally, the customisable nature of the fact find allows you to add additional questions relating to any extra support that clients may need, ensuring that you can effectively tailor your service to meet their needs.
The Consumer Support outcome particularly focusses on customers being able to easily access support at any point throughout the process. Whilst again this relies heavily on the infrastructure of your firm, the secure messaging feature of the client portal can help to meet this requirement – enabling easy and fast communication between you and your clients.
Enhance your advice process with the Financial Advice Hub
The Financial Advice Hub is designed to help you deliver high-quality advice that meets the needs and expectations of your clients. Support client understanding and empowered decision-making with tailored communications, visual cashflow plans, and a secure client portal.
