The Future Hinges on Meeting Customers More Than Half Way

PONTE VEDRA, Fla. -- When Merrill Lynch recently announced it would allow its 15,000-strong advisor force to text clients, it marked a big departure from the firm's cautious nature.

But it was necessary to capture business in a fast-moving social landscape. Speaking generally, Sean F. O'Donnell, vice president of member relations and consulting for LIMRA, said companies are going to have to continue churning out bold ideas.

"It’s absolutely is about mobile devices. It’s about digital – digital engagement and digital platforms," O'Donnell said. "Making it easy to do business and easy to do business across the value chains."

Engaging customers where they are is one theme in O'Donnell's presentation today at LIMRA's 2018 Distribution Conference.

O'Donnell will discuss opportunities for channel growth. He admits upfront that it won't be an easy task for traditional firms to make the changes necessary to spark channel growth.

"A successful channel today is going to be customer-centric," he added. "So it’s focused on meeting the needs of the customer and focused on how to find them, how to engage them and how to meet their needs."

There is going to be a much closer relationship moving forward between marketing and channel development, O'Donnell said.

"The channel is going to be data driven," he explained. "That’s not to say guts-based decisions are completely gone because you’ve got to feed your gut, but the gut is going to be fed by more data."

O'Donnell won't have far to look for recent real-world examples.

Merrill Lynch policies governing email apply to text messaging and live training sessions for advisors are available twice a week, but employees are blocked from attaching pictures, documents and emojis to their text messages, a Merrill Lynch spokeswoman said.

“Texting is just our latest investment in building our state-of-the-art digital capabilities – so that we can serve our clients when, where and how they want,” said Andy Sieg, head of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, last month.

Likewise, broker/dealer and registered investment advisor Voya Financial Advisors launched a new service enhancing texting communications for its 2,000 advisors.

Just for the record, text and chat communications are being recorded with time and date stamps, and archived on a par with written and email communications in the wake of regulatory guidance issued by FINRA last April.

Cooperation Needed

Cooperation is going to be needed to make channels successful, O'Donnell said.

"As we move forward, the real challenge for us to be successful in distribution management is to really challenge some of the conventional wisdom and the traditional turf," he explained. "Carriers and distributors need to really see this as a real partnership in meeting the needs of the consumer."

That means working together to find the right engagement platforms and initiatives, he said, and even sharing data.

"That’s going to challenge those traditional roles and perceptions that distributors and carriers have," he said.

InsuranceNewsNet Senior Editor John Hilton has covered business and other beats in more than 20 years of daily journalism. John may be reached at [email protected].

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