-Growing Financial Advising Firm utilizes Oncontact CRM to provide enhanced, personalized service -
JNBA Financial Advisors is an independent comprehensive planning and wealth management firm. The company prides itself on providing personal service, objective advice and customized investment solutions. Because of its personalized service, 95 percent of clients who start with JNBA stay with the company.
To uphold and exceed client expectations, it is important for JNBA to provide the best customer experience possible. In 2005, the company re-evaluated its business processes and realized that it outgrew its current customer relationship management (CRM) system. JNBA needed a robust solution that could evolve with its rapidly growing business.
“Our previous solution was fine for tracking names and phone numbers,” said Troy Mertens, chief financial and operations officer, JNBA. “However, as our business continues to grow, we have moved beyond these needs and now require a stronger, more vigorous system that provides increased visibility to our client’s needs.”
An Encompassing View
Upon realizing the need for a new solution, JNBA evaluated numerous CRM systems and ultimately picked Oncontact Software’s Oncontact CRM.
“After extensive research, we came to the conclusion that Oncontact CRM was the best solution for our business,” Mertens added. “Its flexibility allows us to retain information on site and gives us the ability to change, modify and tweak the program however we want, whenever we want.”
JNBA utilizes Oncontact CRM on its operational side to streamline business processes to ensure clients have a high quality and consistent experience. By implementing business rules, the company can be sure that all procedures are properly followed by employees. Now, Oncontact CRM is utilized virtually every minute of the day to capture all tasks performed in relation to a client. By housing all activity, employees always have complete visibility into their clients’ history to answer any inquiries that may arise.
The company also incorporated Oncontact CRM into its sales and marketing department to track all ongoing opportunities with both existing clients and new clients. The solution allows management to monitor these processes through the sales pipeline to ensure that no opportunities fall by the wayside. In addition to having complete visibility to client activity, JNBA can use this data to pull accurate activity, sales and pipeline reports at any given time.
“We now know exactly what happens, when it happens and how it happens regarding our new and current client relationships,” Mertens said. “Oncontact provides us with an end-to-end process that allows us to make changes on the fly to make our business more efficient.”
Customized to Meet JNBA’s Needs
JNBA has significantly customized Oncontact CRM to meet its unique business requirements. The company is slightly different than most Oncontact customers because the majority of its clients are families rather than companies. With the flexibility of Oncontact, JNBA was able to tailor and modify the system to complement its business structure.
The company has created new tabs throughout Oncontact CRM to house important information including a clients net worth, investment accounts within JNBA’s custodial control and investment accounts that reside outside of the company, such as a 401(k). Further, a message tab was also created allowing users to log and view the most recent correspondence. Finally, a tab highlighting the associations across the board, such as attorneys and accountants, was created to allow JNBA to identify common clients. By creating such tabs, employees are now more productive and have the vital information needed at hand.
“Oncontact CRM is an integral part of our business and resides at the center of our operations.” Mertens said. “Since implementing the solution, we now have streamlined business processes enabling us to further provide exceptional, personalized customer service.”
Focusing on What Matters Most
Advisors at JNBA meet with clients at least once, if not twice, during the course of the year. A significant amount of preparation is required prior to these meetings to make them as successful and productive as possible. Before implementing Oncontact CRM, employees were spending a minimum of an hour and a half pulling together the documents necessary. Now with Oncontact, this process only takes a maximum of 30 minutes. This is possible because JNBA created a tab that houses important documents such as trust documents, wills, healthcare declarations, account applications and beneficiary information within each client’s account.
“We now spend our valuable time focusing on client needs rather than trying to put together basic information and documents,” said Mertens. “Oncontact CRM allows us to have all important documents at our finger tips at any given time.”
A Friendly Experience
Throughout the years of being an Oncontact client, JNBA has worked with the support team regularly for assistance with customizations and any other issues that arise. To date, JNBA has always had positive, successful experience and received the necessary support.
“Over and above the functionality and ability of the program, the willingness of the Oncontact support team really allows companies to take full advantage of the program,” Mertens concluded. “We’ve always had a great experience with Oncontact. They are always willing to talk us through any issue. I couldn’t say enough positive things about them.”
