Redtail Technology published the results from a survey entitled "Gen Tech" which show that the majority (55%) of Gen-X and Baby Boomer financial advisory employees today use mobile devices and tablets to access their CRMs, at a percentage just ahead of Millennial employees.
The survey polled more than 2,300 financial advisory professionals ranging from Millennials to Generation-Xers to Baby Boomers across the country in an effort to understand trends about technology usage across generations.
"It's no secret that our industry is evolving at lightning speed," said Redtail Technology CEO Brian McLaughlin.
"That said, as members of the advisor fintech community, it's Redtail's responsibility to keep our fingers on the pulse of which technologies advisory firms are either keen or slow to adopt. We set out to uncover the technology disconnect across generations, however the results really surprised us."
Specifically, these findings reveal:
- More than half of Baby Boomer (52%) and Gen-Xer (58%) advisory employees access their company CRM via mobile or tablet devices, more than Millennial advisory firms employees (50%);
- Across all generations, financial planning software (79%) is the most commonly used technology followed by client portal (57%) and risk profiling and analysis technology (51%);
- Only 9% of wealth management firms said that they are using digital trading software, followed by 31% using compliance technology, across all generations
- The use of technology systems within an advisory firm correlates with age, with Millennial respondents as the biggest users of technology systems, followed by Gen-Xers and then Baby Boomers.
McLaughlin concludes, "Our research shows that Gen-Xers, Baby Boomers and Millennials in the industry are more technology empowered than we think. The biggest eye opener for us was all generations are seeing eye-to-eye on technology. It's apparent that the industry can no longer afford to overlook aging advisors as a target market, particularly those who need assistance on their succession planning strategies."
The survey was conducted on the heels of the rollout of Redtail's advanced artificial intelligence capabilities. Using the concept of "transfer learning," Redtail utilizes smaller amounts of data to begin the learning process.
The system then analyzes emails, notes and text messages to predict and estimate client needs, create better outcomes, and discover important connections that enable all parties to make better financial decisions.
