Chances are your firm’s tech stack consists of platforms and tools provided by multiple providers (around five different providers, to be exact!). You have a CRM to track important client data, an email management system for sending newsletters, portfolio management software – and the list goes on.
As the financial services industry becomes more competitive, advisors who embrace and utilize these tech offerings will continue to differentiate themselves and scale effectively. The problem, however, is your firm’s critical platforms don’t always speak the same language, meaning they don’t exchange information easily or quickly. As a result, your tech may become “siloed,” which can create inconsistencies, errors, cybersecurity risks or issues with team collaboration.
The question is: How can your firm ensure data is accurately and consistently shared across your tech stack? The answer is by utilizing open APIs. Let’s take a look at how Open APIs help advisors deliver a better client experience for advisory firms.
Learning the Lingo of APIs
At their core, open APIs enable quick, secure data exchange between two systems that otherwise may not “play nice” with one another.
A great example of open APIs are travel sites: Rather than search across multiple individual airline or hotel chain sites, third-party travel bookings allow you to compare and book your travel plans quickly. They do so by relying on accurate, real-time data sent via open APIs from hotel chains and airlines.
Let’s break it down even further:
- “Open” means the API is publicly available – Other developers or users can use the API with their desired software or websites, even if those tech tools aren’t related to the original API software.
- “API” stands for “application programming interface” – APIs are what enable communication and data sharing between separate software systems, tools and platforms. Incorporating APIs into certain software can optimize their operations by automating certain functions and enabling those programs to receive real-time data (such as changes to client contact information, meeting notes, etc.).
How Open APIs Enhance Client Experience: 3 Key Benefits
While you’re not running a travel booking site, you still need a way to accurately and effectively bridge the data gap across your tech stack. Having this capability allows you to not only operate more efficiently but improve the overall client experience as well.
1. Open APIs Enable You to Address Questions and Concerns Quickly
As an advisor, few operational standards are more important than having clean, consistent and up-to-date data across your firm. Clients trust you to maintain and deliver accurate information, which makes it incredibly important for all platforms and software to be updated simultaneously.
Whether a client calls your office to ask a question or comes to their annual meeting ready to discuss long-term goals, it’s critical that you have access to clean, up-to-date data in order to effectively address their concerns.
Open APIs allow you to preserve the integrity of important client data by eliminating the errors often caused by manual data re-entry.
2. Open APIs Clear the Way for a Standardized Client Experience
Open APIs are becoming increasingly more sophisticated, which means you can spend less time re-formatting data across all platforms. The more standardized you can make your internal operations and data sets, the more efficient you become at serving clients.
Why? Because standardizing client data allows you to focus more of your time and effort on tailoring your interactions and services to meet their individual needs – as opposed to spending extra time gathering data, downloading and formatting it into spreadsheets, entering it into various systems and so on.
3. Open APIs can Streamline Compliance
Compliance is something every advisor must incorporate into their firm’s operations, yet regulatory obligations are usually not revenue-driving or client-facing tasks. Rather, they tend to take time away from those that otherwise move the needle on your firm’s growth goals.
Open APIs enable advisors to more effectively track information across the firm, identify potential errors or missing information and standardize data sets – all of which can save valuable time from a record-keeping perspective.
With Mobile Assistant’s Open API, for example, advisors can send notes directly to their CRM after every client meeting – ensuring every discussion is properly documented and client files remain effortlessly up-to-date.
Meet ConnectIt+
Open APIs are becoming a cornerstone of effective advisory tech stacks, and for good reason. Mobile Assistant’s own ConnectIt+ Open API enables advisors to access secure and accurate transcripts (written by real humans!) from any desktop or mobile device.
ConnectIt+ uses two authentication methods (a Developer Key as well as a Plugin Installation JWT) to ensure all data is stored and transmitted securely. The authentication method used is determined by the endpoint:
A “plugin,” serves as an addition to software you may already be using. When added to certain programs, the plugin can increase customization or capabilities. With Mobile Assistant, for example, our open API plugin allows users to build custom integrations right within their favorite tech platforms.
Learn more about the tech fueling ConnectIt+ in our QuickStart Guide.
Open APIs can standardize client processes, streamline client communications and improve compliance throughout your firm. If your firm is focused on improving customer satisfaction in 2024, open APIs can offer direction and growth for both you and your clients.
Explore ConnectIt+, Mobile Assistant’s Open API
To learn more about ConnectIt+ and our available Plugins, unlock your free trial of Mobile Assistant today.
