Easy Workflows, Powerful Task Tracking

Synopsis

Frustrated by trying to fit office procedures into CRM workflows? Try using software that specifically adds workflow creation and automation to your CRM-and enjoy the office management features that come with it.

Takeaways

Break client projects and activities into bite- sized workflows with a small number of tasks-and then link the workflows so when one is finished, the next one automatically begins. Track every assigned and completed task, so nothing falls through the cracks - and then build client service standards right into the software.

Financial planners and advisor professionals have been hectored for years about the need for them to create workflows as a way to streamline and automate their office procedures. Ideally, these workflows would reside in their software system, as sequences of tasks where, when one task in the sequence is completed, the software triggers the next task, and the person who is involved in that next activity is alerted. Even more ideally, the software would do simple rote tasks that would move the process along more quickly and smoothly.

But when you go into the traditional CRM software programs today, you discover that you have to be an experienced programmer or have the patience of Job to create customized workflows for common tasks like preparing for a prospect meeting, onboarding a client, gathering the data to produce a financial plan or executing a client check request. And even then, the automated workflows are at best clumsy, at worst impossible to configure for individual client circumstances. So is the best approach to give up and resort to a spreadsheet? Until recently, that would have been my best recommendation. But now we have Hubly.

Hubly sits on top of Redtail or Wealthbox, drawing client data from the CRM as needed, and functions as a pure workflow creation and execution engine that extends the functionality of these core programs in interesting ways. It was introduced into the market relatively recently—July 2020—by a team led by CEO Louis Retief, formerly a product designer for a Canadian robo-advisory firm called WealthSimple, known above the border as the Betterment of Canada.
‍
Retief is not allergic to research. “Prior to launch, before we even sat down to design Hubly, we interviewed 150 advisors,” he says. “We shadowed them for months, to understand how they work on a day-to-day basis. What does their task management process look like? What are their existing workflows? Where are their biggest inefficiencies? We now have data on over 250,000 tasks that have been completed by the back offices of advisory firms,” he adds, “and we found that most of it is highly-repetitive manual work, everything from uploading and downloading files to entering data by hand to scheduling appointments with repeated phone messaging.”

‍