Xplan offers so much more than Adviser Office, but many firms struggle to get the best from it straight away. If you’re suffering from any or all of these 6 common pain points, the good news is that with the right support you can start to see the wood for the trees.
1. Incorrect third-party valuations due to lack of data feeds
Problem Statement:
You simply want to provide your clients with an accurate, branded valuation statement. You know Xplan can do it, which makes it all the more frustrating that it’s not currently possible just because you haven’t had the time or resource to get all your third party data feeds set up properly.
Solution:
It’s time to get your data feeds set up correctly. Invest time on this now and you’ll start to reap the benefits immediately – real-time valuations, improved user adoption, and ability to display values for your clients in the online portal, to name a few. This is one of those areas that can feel like a minefield if you’re new to it, but did you know that our in-house data feeds expert can usually make significant progress on this for you in just a matter of days? In fact, we’re so passionate about this topic that you can read our dedicated article about it HERE.
2. Lack of meaningful management information
Problem Statement:
Getting some basic AUM and new business figures are probably some of the top priorities for your senior stakeholders. But with the added pressure of Consumer Duty right around the corner, you also urgently need MI on other key consumer metrics too, like fees, propositions, annual reviews and vulnerability.
Solution:
Did you know that MI doesn’t just mean spreadsheets? There are several different ways to get MI from Xplan, including:
- User dashboards that are tailored to teams or individual roles
- Advanced searches to display data instantly on screen
- Xports scheduled to drop into specific people’s inboxes at a frequency of your choice
- NEW: Advice Compliance module – user-friendly out-of-the-box charts designed to help ensure you meet your compliance and regulatory obligations
- Full regular data exports into an external data warehouse if that’s your preference
3. Gremlins in your legacy data
Problem Statement:
You’ve just migrated to Xplan and it’s exposed a whole raft of data inaccuracies that simply weren’t visible in AO. It’s a classic case of ‘rubbish in, rubbish out’ so solving problem statement 2 above probably seems miles away right now.
Solution:
There are various things you can do here:
- Bring in specialists to work with your business practitioners to help tidy things up
- Encourage your advisers to gap-fill during the Fact Finding process at each annual review meeting
- Invite your clients to provide updated information via the digital Fact Find in the portal
- See if you can apply any logic or rules to fix data in Excel and then upload it in bulk to Xplan.
In reality, it’s likely to be a combination of these things. We’ve been there before so we can help you take stock of the issues, estimate the effort involved, and recommend the right priorities.
4. Little to no user adoption or knowledge
Problem Statement:
Your staff are struggling to learn the new system because it’s got so much more functionality than AO. It’s a vicious cycle because the less they use it, the worse the stored data will be. This exacerbates the problem, because they won’t trust the data that they’re seeing.
Solution:
It’s human nature to be averse to change and most people don’t typically learn how to use new technology on the first attempt. Engage your users, invite them to actively input into the decisions, provide regular training refreshers in different formats and targeted at the right audiences.
Remember: the vast majority of advisers care deeply about their end clients, so don’t just sell them the business benefits like MI and scalability. Focus on how their new technology solution will help them help their clients.
5. Insufficient configuration & site admin skills
Problem Statement:
Whether you’re using a managed service or a bespoke Xplan site, you still need to oversee and maintain your new system to some degree. If you’re too busy worrying about pain points 1 to 4, this might not even be on your radar yet. And if it is, the chances are it’s taking up time that could be spent on other things.
Solution:
Our advice is to not panic or make knee-jerk reactions. Poor configuration (and especially over-configuration! Ever heard of “death by tasks”?!) can often be worse than no configuration at all. And it’s all too tempting to rush into making changes without engaging practitioners to get their input.
Get the right people in the room, document their requirements, and make sure you have someone with good Xplan knowledge involved as well so that your business process is configured efficiently and effectively whilst taking full advantage of the system features that you might not even be aware of.
6. No digital benefits for your clients yet
Problem Statement:
Pretty much all of the items above, from poor data to lack of knowledge and adoption, collectively mean that the people who stand to lose out are your clients – the very people you did this for in the first place. The idea of benefiting from the Iress client portal seems far off.
Solution:
If digital engagement is a business priority, think about just rolling out the portal with Messages & Documents access to start with. This allows both clients and staff to get comfortable with the new system without any risk of exposing poor data.
You can then take the opportunity to upgrade people’s access to include assets and portfolios as part of the annual review process, when you’d be checking and updating their policy values anyway. You could even embed it into your annual review workflow so that it happens seamlessly for each client.
Get a FREE Xplan Healthcheck
Let our team of friendly experts take a look at your Xplan site for free.
We can advise you on which actions you can take right now to get the most value – whether that’s the quick wins, the big-ticket items, or a combination of the two.
Then, if you do choose to engage with us, it means we’ll be able to allocate the most appropriate experts from the team to help resolve your challenges – whether that’s training, data feeds, configuration or the client portal. And by having already familiarised ourselves with your Xplan site by carrying out the Healthcheck, we’ll be able to make a real impact straight away.
We created Evotra because we’ve been there and we want to help others in the same position, so please do call us for a chat on 020 3410 1966 or email us at [email protected].