Challenge
The Need to Stay Ahead of The Curve
The financial industry has faced many changes in recent years and perhaps the biggest shift has affected its demographics. As current investors are aging, they are being replaced by millennials who are far more tech-savvy, confident, and aggressive in making financial decisions. That’s why having a technology that can efficiently handle mass volumes of client requests is paramount for companies striving to capitalize on new market opportunities and stay ahead of the competition.
Our customer is unlike any other financial planning firm. What sets it apart is 120 years in the industry and a diversified business portfolio including asset management, retirement planning services, life insurance, and annuities. As most of its clients come from onsite events and seminars, it’s important to have the ability to make follow-up appointments on the spot while potential clients are showing strong interest in connecting with an advisor.
Solution
Changing The Game With A Smart Appointment System
Our customer addressed SUMO with the goal to increase the volume of their leads coming from onsite events to help drive new business. The management team shared that they wanted to improve the effectiveness of recruiting new clients as in the past, they’ve struggled with outdated manual processes and disparate scheduling systems.
Previously, the company had no experience using automation and appointment scheduling was inherently decentralized and manual. A unified calendar view showing resource availability was the key missing component, making it hard to connect potential clients with the right advisors in a timely manner. In addition, using separate calendars and scheduling tools was time-consuming and often led to multiple errors in finding available resources and meeting locations. The management team knew they needed an automated scheduling platform to join up their activity and help improve the appointment flow.
Results
Seeing Goals Through To The End
The SUMO Customer Engagement Platform was central to the company’s ability to grow new business and convert event leads into long-term clients. Some of the benefits Strategic Wealth Designers attained with SUMO are:
Online Appointment Scheduler with Invite Manager and Resource Pools
The SUMO Platform provided a unified view for the appointment and staff availability allowing advisors to make quick appointments at in-person events. SUMO Scheduler not only displayed calendar availability for individual advisors but also showed vacant meeting facilities based on the client’s location and appointment time. In addition, an Invite Manager feature gave the team the power to send secure personalized email invitations for automatic bookings while Resource Pools assigned bookings to team members based on a preferred distribution method.
Instant Booker for The Right Person, Right Location, and Right Time
With its intuitive design and simple user experience, SUMO’s Instant Booking Module finds openings and connects the prospect with the right advisor and available location within a matter of seconds. From day one, the team was able to save up to 25% of the time by eliminating manual effort and minimizing scheduling errors. Multi-location support was also a key asset in finding available meeting locations and ensuring that the client gets booked with the right advisor no matter how many calendars are involved.
Reminder Engine with Automated Emails, Text, and Phone Notifications
Finally, the SUMO Reminder Engine made sure that no-shows became a non-issue for the company. The system was able to effectively cut appointment no-shows by 30% while driving revenue up with automated reminders. The team now has complete freedom to choose a configurable template based on the type of appointment which allows for personalized customer service. Clients also enjoy the ability to cancel or reschedule their appointment automatically, without having to contact their advisor by simply clicking a link inside the reminder message.
Today, our customer credits SUMO as a central element of the company’s tremendous success and looks forward to continuing the partnership.
