Managing thousands of customers while maintaining personalized service—this is the challenge keeping business leaders awake at night. Unlike purely transactional businesses, customer-centric organizations build long-term relationships that drive repeat business, referrals, and sustainable growth.
When Bryn Mawr Trust—a sophisticated wealth management firm—announced their custodial relationship with Altruist, the industry took notice. The deciding factor wasn't pricing or product breadth. According to their leadership, it was "digital client experience."
That phrase should prompt every RIA to ask: what experience are my clients having?
Here's the uncomfortable reality: most RIA client experiences haven't fundamentally changed in a decade. Clients still email their advisor to request documents, wait for someone to manually pull statements, navigate multiple logins to access different information, wonder about the status of in-progress requests, and receive communications that feel generic and templated.
Meanwhile, their expectations are being shaped by experiences with companies like Apple, Amazon, and their digital-first bank. According to Salesforce's State of the Connected Customer research, 88% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services.
Today's wealth management clients expect self-service access to information they need available 24/7, real-time visibility into their complete financial picture, proactive communication about relevant developments, personalized interactions that reflect their history and preferences, and seamless experiences across devices and channels.
The firms that close this gap win. The firms that don't will watch clients—especially next-generation heirs—migrate to competitors who meet modern expectations.
The great wealth transfer is accelerating. Over the next two decades, an estimated $84 trillion will pass from Baby Boomers to younger generations. These inheritors have grown up with digital-first experiences and have little patience for firms that operate like it's still 2010.
Research from Gartner indicates that wealth management firms with superior digital experiences retain 23% more next-generation clients than those with average digital capabilities. The client experience you build today determines whether you retain the assets you manage tomorrow.
The technology to deliver exceptional client experiences exists today. The combination of Salesforce Experience Cloud and HubSpot creates a foundation for client portals that rival any digital-first competitor.
Salesforce Experience Cloud enables you to create branded, secure portals where clients can view their complete financial picture with aggregated data from custodians, planning software, and other sources presented in a unified dashboard with real-time synchronization. Clients gain access to documents on demand—statements, tax documents, and agreements available instantly without staff intervention. They can track request status in real time, seeing progress indicators for onboarding tasks and transfer requests with estimated completion timelines.
The platform also enables self-service appointment booking integrated with advisor calendars, secure compliant messaging that keeps all interactions documented, and digital task completion through electronic signature workflows and guided processes for complex documents.
Behind the portal, HubSpot powers personalized communication that makes every interaction feel relevant. Behavioral triggers enable automated outreach based on portal activity, life event recognition, and account changes. Dynamic content ensures communications are personalized to each client's interests, holdings, and life stage. Clients maintain control through preference management, choosing how and when they receive communications across different channels and topics.
The system also provides systematic feedback collection, capturing client sentiment through post-interaction surveys, Net Promoter Score tracking, and issue identification.
Consider how a modern client experience differs from traditional service models.
The traditional approach involves advisors emailing paperwork as attachments, clients printing and scanning documents, manual processing by admin staff, and phone calls to check status—a timeline of 2-4 weeks with multiple follow-ups.
The modern digital experience changes this completely. Clients receive portal invitations with guided setup, complete all forms digitally with e-signature, and track real-time progress as milestones complete automatically. The timeline shrinks to 1-2 weeks with fully self-service tracking.
Traditional document requests require clients to email their advisor, who forwards to operations, who retrieves documents from the custodian, then emails them back—a process taking 1-3 business days.
With a modern portal, clients log in, navigate to the documents section, and download current and historical statements instantly. Timeline: 2 minutes.
Traditional planning involves manual presentation preparation, email back-and-forth to schedule, meetings with follow-up summaries arriving days later, and then waiting until the annual review for the next interaction.
Modern digital experience provides real-time planning dashboards in the portal, automated monthly insights on goal progress, self-service video call booking, and meeting notes appearing in the portal immediately. Behavioral triggers prompt engagement at key moments throughout the year.
Building a modern client experience isn't an overnight transformation. Here's a phased approach that balances ambition with practical execution.
Deploy Salesforce Experience Cloud with basic portal functionality, implement single sign-on and security infrastructure, and establish data synchronization with your core CRM. Create a document library with secure client access, build account overview dashboards with custodial data integration, and launch mobile-responsive design for all devices.
Target 50% client registration, track document downloads and login frequency, and collect user feedback.
Add appointment scheduling integration, implement e-signature workflows, create request tracking, and build secure messaging functionality. Automate document delivery to the portal, create workflow triggers for service requests, and implement notification systems.
Track service request volume through the portal versus traditional channels, measure average resolution time, monitor e-signature completion rates, and collect client satisfaction scores.
Connect HubSpot for communication automation, implement behavioral triggers based on portal activity, build dynamic content personalization rules, and create a client preference center. Launch personalized nurture sequences, implement life event recognition and response, and build proactive communication workflows.
Monitor email engagement rates, communication preference adoption, behavioral trigger conversion rates, and NPS improvement.
Add planning tool integrations for goal tracking, implement proactive alert systems for portfolio events, build client health scoring dashboards, and create next-generation client communication workflows. Deploy Einstein AI features for personalization, implement predictive engagement scoring, and build recommendation engines.
Track portal engagement depth, proactive communication response rates, client retention rate improvement, and assets under management growth correlation.
Altruist's success with Bryn Mawr Trust isn't an isolated story. Across the industry, firms are discovering that digital experience has become a genuine differentiator—not just for attracting new clients, but for retaining existing relationships and winning the next generation.
According to HubSpot research, companies that prioritize customer experience see 60% higher profitability than competitors. For RIAs, this translates to higher client retention as satisfied clients don't leave for competitors, increased referrals from delighted clients who become advocates, more wallet share as engaged clients consolidate assets, and lower service costs as self-service reduces operational burden.
Firms with superior digital experiences also win more new clients. Digital processes remove friction from onboarding, modern portals signal operational sophistication, referrals who experience the portal convert at higher rates, and younger prospects expect digital-first service.
Beyond client impact, digital experience infrastructure creates operational leverage. Self-service handles routine requests, reducing phone and email volume. E-signature eliminates paper handling, speeding document processing. Personalization scales without manual effort through automated communications, and digital interactions create complete records for better data capture.
Implementing digital client experience is an investment that should deliver measurable returns. Track engagement metrics like portal adoption rate, login frequency, feature utilization, and channel preferences. Monitor satisfaction through Net Promoter Score, feature ratings, support ticket volume, and response times. Measure business impact through client retention rate, referral volume, assets consolidated, and operational efficiency improvements.
The RIAs that invest in client experience infrastructure today aren't just improving operations—they're building a competitive moat. As client expectations continue to rise, the gap between experience leaders and laggards will only widen.
Clients who experience better service elsewhere will leave, creating retention risk. Satisfied clients generate referrals while frustrated ones don't, representing lost opportunity. Heirs will choose firms that meet their expectations during the next-generation transfer. The experience gap compounds over time, affecting competitive position.
Your competitors are investing. Your clients are expecting more. The question isn't whether to modernize your client experience—it's how quickly you can execute.
The technology exists. The platforms are proven. The implementation path is clear. What remains is the commitment to prioritize client experience as a strategic differentiator, not just an operational consideration.
How much does it cost to implement a client portal using Salesforce Experience Cloud?
Implementation costs typically range from $50,000 to $150,000 for initial deployment, depending on customization requirements and integration complexity. This includes Experience Cloud licensing (approximately $10-25 per user per month), implementation services, and integration with your existing custodial and CRM systems. Ongoing costs include licensing, maintenance, and periodic enhancements. Most firms see positive ROI within 18-24 months through reduced service costs and improved client retention.
Can small RIAs compete with larger firms on digital experience?
Absolutely. Modern platforms like Salesforce Experience Cloud and HubSpot have democratized access to enterprise-grade client experience capabilities. Small firms can implement sophisticated portals at a fraction of what custom development would cost, and cloud-based pricing scales with firm size. The key differentiator is execution quality, not budget size. A well-implemented portal at a $200M AUM firm can match or exceed the experience offered by multi-billion dollar competitors.
How do we drive client adoption of a new portal?
Successful portal adoption requires a structured rollout combining mandatory functionality with demonstrated value. Start by making the portal the exclusive channel for certain documents (statements, tax forms) to create necessity. Then showcase convenience features (appointment scheduling, secure messaging) to create desire. Provide training through short video tutorials and one-on-one guidance for less tech-savvy clients. Set adoption targets (70% registration within 90 days) and track progress weekly. Consider incentives for early adopters and personal outreach to holdouts.
Vantage Point helps RIAs design and implement client experience platforms using Salesforce Experience Cloud and HubSpot.
Vantage Point specializes in helping financial institutions design and implement client experience transformation programs using Salesforce Financial Services Cloud. Our team combines deep Salesforce expertise with financial services industry knowledge to deliver measurable improvements in client satisfaction, operational efficiency, and business results.
David Cockrum founded Vantage Point after serving as Chief Operating Officer in the financial services industry. His unique blend of operational leadership and technology expertise has enabled Vantage Point's distinctive business-process-first implementation methodology, delivering successful transformations for 150+ financial services firms across 400+ engagements with a 4.71/5.0 client satisfaction rating and 95%+ client retention rate.