Tips from a Happiness Hero: How to Transition Your Clients to AdvicePay

Are you ready to introduce AdvicePay to your clients? We’d love to help with the transition!

We can imagine how excited and ready you are to incorporate our platform into your firm -- however, you also are likely wondering how this change may affect your clients. While change is not always easy, we believe that thorough-yet-simple communication can make all the difference between a stellar client experience and one that is...well, just so-so. 

In the past, client financial planning onboarding mainly centered around face-to-face meetings and wet-ink signatures. As the world becomes more digitized, the standard financial planning practice needs have evolved. Moreover, all the changes over the last year and a half have uncovered the real need for a fully digital client experience.

Just because the onboarding process is not exactly what it once was, developing a customized digital onboarding standard for your clients doesn’t have to mean something is being lost in your relationship. Even though your practice might have transitioned to being fully/largely digital, ensuring you add personal touches throughout the onboarding journey can create a positive impression and make all the difference to your clients!

For example, imagine your client is only receiving emails asking for signatures and payments from them to receive financial services. It can feel a tad cold, pushy, and impersonal -- everything firms want to avoid. 

Instead, we encourage the addition of creating an onboarding email outlining from start to finish your financial planning requirements, documentation needed, deliverable timelines, and technology implemented at your firm. Transparency is so important for clients to feel confident and supported in your ability to provide sound financial planning services!

To make the transition of implementing our platform even easier, our team has created the below sample email to use when introducing your clients to AdvicePay. We included some important details about our platform, client portal capabilities, quick links to hot topic help desk articles, and our support contact information. 

We want to encourage you to use all (or just a little!) to ease the transition, adjusting the language as needed to fit your voice and tone.

It is one thing to implement new technology in your firm, but it’s another thing entirely to have your technology work for your clients. At AdvicePay, not only do we have a full Client Help Desk, but our Happiness team is available between 8a - 5p Mountain Time, Monday through Friday to help with any questions your clients may have (aiming to reply within 30-60 minutes 🙌). 

If your client has any questions about their client portal, making a payment or even updating their email address -- we will be happy to jump right in and help!

We have found that when clients have a positive technological experience, they feel more connected to you and your mutual relationship is strengthened. Developing and maintaining trust within the Advisor - Client relationship is key to positive outcomes -- as well as those all-important referrals! We are here to support both you and your clients to ensure the absolute best user experience possible.

Dear Clients, 

We’re writing to let you know that <insert your firm name> is introducing a new technology tool called AdvicePay. This simple platform will make it easier for you to make payments and quickly manage your billing online! AdvicePay accepts both credit/debit cards and checking accounts (ACH) for payment, which gives you the flexibility to pay via the method that is most convenient for you.

We’ll also be using AdvicePay to facilitate eSignatures so your documents can get signed online without the hassle of printing or wet signing documents.

We want to reassure you that data security is of the utmost importance to <insert your firm name>. AdvicePay keeps all platform activity encrypted and never stores any of your payment information in the AdvicePay database, so you don’t have to worry about your information being compromised. AdvicePay also uses Stripe, which is one of the largest U.S.-based technology payment processors and has the most stringent level of security certification available in the payments industry. 

(Please note that you may see AdvicePay, AdvPay, Stripe, or even a variation of our account owner representative’s name on your credit card or bank account statements for payments made through AdvicePay.)

While you do not need to register your account on AdvicePay to pay invoices, you're encouraged to do so in order to download PDF invoices, manage your payment methods, update your email address, and manage your email settings. That being said, AdvicePay does offer the ability for you to pay invoices -- as well as eSign documents -- all without setting up an account or logging in.

If you do choose to create an account, here is a preview of what you can expect to see in your AdvicePay client portal: 

We’re excited to begin using AdvicePay and make access to financial planning even easier! AdvicePay's Client Help Desk offers a wealth of tutorials + FAQs, and is available directly through the app. For general "how to" questions and tech support, the friendly AdvicePay team is also eager to help: just contact support@advicepay.com.

As you begin interacting with the AdvicePay, we recommend reading and bookmarking the following articles:

• How to Make a Payment
• How to Sign Documents

Please let us know if you have any questions as we make this transition. We value your business and are here to support you!