Many investment advisors face challenges in providing personalized, accurate, and timely financial performance reports to their clients. The ability to customize reports and ensure their accurate delivery can significantly impact client satisfaction and trust, which are crucial for client retention and business growth.

Personalized communication is a key driver of client trust, as highlighted by recent research supported by the Financial Planning Association​. This research underscores the importance of personalized communication in building trust and commitment between advisors and their clients. It demonstrates that successful client relationships, which are vital in the financial planning industry, significantly benefit from tailored communication strategies.

Additionally, findings published in the​ Kitces.com Nerd’s Eye View from investment research platform YCharts reveal that the frequency and quality of communication from financial advisors significantly influence client satisfaction and their decisions to stay with or recommend their advisors. 

The study highlights that clients appreciate when advisors provide regular updates and insights tailored to their specific financial situations, which directly affects their overall satisfaction and loyalty to their advisors​.

Improving Communication with CircleBlack’s Household Preferences

Accurate and timely reporting not only enhances transparency but also strengthens the advisor-client relationship.  CircleBlack’s Household Preferences feature directly facilitates this relationship-building element by allowing advisors to customize how financial data is displayed and reported to clients through the Investor Portal.

Advisors can set preferences for email reports, performance calculation methodology, and benchmark comparisons, ensuring that each household receives information that is relevant and aligned with their specific financial goals.

How to Use CircleBlack Household Preferences Functionality

To utilize this enhanced functionality, advisors can navigate to the Household Information Widget or the Household Information Details page, then select Preferences. These Preferences include:

• Email Reports
  • Monthly & Weekly Email Reports are delivered directly to a Household’s email in HTML format with the firm or advisor logo and include the following:
    • Household’s total portfolio balance & the portfolio’s change over the given time period
    • Each account’s balance and the account balance change over a given time period
    • The Household’s portfolio asset allocation breakdown
    • If activated to the Investor portal, a login button
  • The Household will receive these reports if the checkbox is selected
• Performance Calculation Methodology 
  • Set at the firm level, calculation of performance and type are displayed in the Investor portal
  • Includes:
    • Methodology: Time-Weighted Return or Dollar-Weighted Return
    • Type: Net of Fees or Gross of Fees
• Benchmark
  • Gives Advisors the ability to determine which benchmark is shown to clients in the Investor portal’s performance tile.  Advisors can also select a preferred default benchmark.  The default benchmark shown is None.  The following ETF-based benchmarks are available:
    • Equity:
      • ACWI Global Stocks
      • ACWX All Countries Ex US
      • DIA Dow Jones Industrials
      • VWO Emerging Markets
      • QQQ NASDAQ 100
      • IWM Russell 2000
      • IJH S&P Mid Cap
      • SPY S&P 500
      • VTI Total US Stocks
    • Fixed Income:
      • VCIT Intermediate Term Corporate Bonds
      • HYG High Yield Bonds
      • BNDX International Bonds
      • BND Total Bond Market
      • MUB Municipal Bonds
  • Once the preferences are set, clients will be able to view the changes upon their next login.

View & Edit Clients within an Associated Household

A Household Grouping table in the Advisor Dashboard now gives advisors the ability to easily view and edit all clients associated with a Household grouping from the Household Dashboard.

In a practical scenario, advisors can choose to send out monthly email reports that include detailed account balances, portfolio changes, and asset allocation breakdowns, all branded with the firm’s logo. This can significantly improve engagement by keeping clients well-informed about their investments and any changes over time.

Read more about enhancing your client management with CircleBlack’s Household Grouping feature here.