Fairstone has launched a digital remote advice solution enabling the firm to engage with clients in a no-contact environment.
The Zeto (zero touch) solution will offer a hybrid approach to engage with clients, that allows all aspects of a face-to-face consultation to be delivered entirely in virtual form.
Fairstone’s solution, which is powered by Microsoft Teams, includes a pre-meeting digital introduction to the process as well as customisable presentation and guidance tools.
This, together with an e-sign solution, enables end-to-end paperless processing to be done simply and securely.
Market research
The service comes in response to recent research carried out by Fairstone.
The UK financial planning firm found that a combined total of 88% of consumers would be happy to conduct virtual meetings with their advisers, with 73% stating that interactive video conference was their preferred method of a virtual meeting.
Clients polled said that the things that would reassure them most when taking part in a virtual meeting were being able to see who they were talking to (66%) and the security of the application being used (24%).
Meanwhile, advisers polled in a separate survey revealed that their clients stated they preferred a mix of communication, with 49% saying that they like face-to-face interaction and 33% stating that they like remote meetings.
Efficiency
Lee Hartley, Fairstone chief executive, said: “As a technology leveraged firm, we have always taken pride in being operationally agile. By taking a flexible and adaptable approach, we have been able to incorporate the lessons and best practice we have learned from our period of working from home.
“While face-to-face and direct contact with clients will always remain at the core of our business, technology can allow advisers to work more efficiently and spend more time with clients.
“Our aim is to engage with clients in a secure and sustainable way to ensure we maintain the highest standard of service.
“Zeto reinforces Fairstone’s commitment to making well-being a priority, supporting new and existing clients in a zero-touch environment without any interruption to operational output or most importantly, service levels.
“This move represents another differentiator in our strategy, the key part is to decide just how much of our business we want to deliver in this way and for which workstreams does Zeto become our default.”
