Maree Moscati, chief executive of the Sarasota - Florida based company

Financial adviser Craig Larsen always prides himself on remembering small details about his clients' lives. Lately he's gotten even better, easily recalling things like the name of a parent's nursing home or the status of a relative's career. His secret? After meetings with clients or prospects, Larsen, president of the St. Charles, Illinois-based AHC Advisors Inc., makes a quick call to a transcription service and dictates into a recorded line what he wants to remember. In a few hours, he gets a transcript, which he later uses to refresh his memory. Larsen is one of the many advisers embracing new technologies that make it easy to capture their thoughts and to-do lists after each meeting. Not only can this impress clients and prospects, the thorough notes make compliance officers happy. Some advisers haven't been won over. They cite the cost of these services and a discomfort with talking about client information with an outside party. But converts say these tools pay for themselves in the time they save, and they're comforted by the extensive measures the companies take to keep information secure.

 

TRANSCRIPTION SERVICES

Copytalk, founded 12 years ago, has established itself as a leading transcription service for advisers, who make up about 11,000 of the company's 13,000 customers. The number of advisers using the service has doubled in the last five years, said Maree Moscati, chief executive of the Sarasota, Florida-based company. AHC Advisors' Larsen said he was initially concerned about the cost of Copytalk - about $79.95 a month - when he started using the service about six months ago, but was won over after it cut down his workload by five to 10 hours a month. Competitors to Copytalk are entering the fray. Charlotte, North Carolina-based United Transcription, a company that handles medical transcriptions, is branching out with a new service called Vocal Genius in the next few weeks. The service targets an array of sectors including advisers, and works similarly to Copytalk, where customers can call a recorded line and give a dictation that is later transcribed by staff. It costs $60 a month for about 60 minutes of dictation, and $1.50 a minute after that. Another alternative is Austin, Texas-based SpeakWrite, which costs 1.25 cents a word and is a good option for advisers who don't want a subscription service. SpeakWrite's main clients are government agencies and lawyers, but about a quarter of their business comes from financial services firms, the company said.

 

SECURITY

Lance Hocutt, a financial adviser with Ameriprise Financial based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is among the hold outs who don't want outside parties hearing their client information. "Any time I can keep it in house I prefer to do it that way," he said. But Hocutt's fears may be misplaced. For one thing, advisers don't have to use their clients' names or account information in their dictations - those can be quickly plugged in after the adviser gets the transcription. Also, transcriptionists aren't told who they're listening to. Copytalk takes security a step further, making staff leave their personal items outside the transcription room. If all that doesn't alleviate an adviser's hesitations, there's another good alternative. Dragon Speech Recognition Software from Nuance Communications Inc. does transcriptions live as the user speaks into a microphone connected to their computer. The software is sold for $100 to $600 in retail stores like Amazon or Best Buy. You may see online reviewers who have complained about the quality of the Dragon transcriptions. But Peter Mahoney, Nuance's chief marketing officer, said sometimes people don't give the software a chance to get familiar with their way of speaking. Another important step is to add words you commonly use to the software's dictionary, he said. Tucker Watkins, an Ameriprise Financial private wealth adviser based in Irvine, California, said he recently purchased Dragon NaturallySpeaking, Version 11 for $600, and he's been really happy with it, especially compared to an earlier version he was using. "It's finally ready for prime time," he said.

 

OTHER TECHNOLOGY

Transcription services aren't the only new tools that can improve advisers' record keeping. Ameriprise's Hocutt says he loves taking notes on his iPad during client meetings. Afterward those notes get copied into a Microsoft Word file, which he cleans up and turns into a follow-up letter for the client. He also has a big-screen television in his conference room that allows him to display the clients' account information and create print outs if necessary. Watkins, also of Ameriprise, says he loves his electronic whiteboard, which allows him to print out copies of the diagrams and charts he creates for clients during their meetings. No matter what tools you use, the bottom line is that details matter, said AHC Advisors' Larsen. "The more I'm able to connect with people about things that are important to them, the deeper the relationship gets," he said.

 

Source: The Economic Times