Proactive or Reactive? Choosing Your CRM Data Management Approach

In the asset management industry, change is constant. Advisors move firms, client relationships shift, and market conditions evolve. However, one thing remains consistent: the need for accurate, up-to-date data in your CRM. It helps you maintain key relationships and identify new opportunities. Recently, we’ve seen an uptick in asset managers recognizing the value of being proactive with rep movement in their CRM data management. There are pros and cons to being proactive. To help you decide what’s right for your firm, Mike Nemecek and I combined our expertise and learnings from working closely with our clients into this post.  

What Happens When a Rep Moves?

When advisors move, they often bring their existing clients with them. This opens a window for asset managers to engage and strengthen relationships if they have the right data in their CRM. If you’re tracking this movement, it allows you to not only protect your current assets but also seize the chance to develop new sales. Without up-to-date CRM data, your marketing campaigns could suffer from low engagement or a high bounce rate, and your sales team could risk visiting an advisor who’s no longer at that office—both being detrimental to outreach efforts.

CRM Data Management: Proactive vs. Reactive Approach

When it comes to managing advisor changes, there are two approaches:

Proactive Approach

• Update advisor information in your CRM before any trades occur.
• Be ready to act on new opportunities immediately.
• Save time and improve collaboration between sales and marketing teams.
• Fewer issues with email bounces and better campaign success.
• Potential impact on compensation structure—need for clear communication with finance teams to avoid unexpected consequences
• Time-consuming if the process of updating is manual

Reactive Approach

• Minimal to no effort expended on updating records, or relying on manual updates done by your internal teams, if that knowledge is even known.
• Wait for trade-based triggers to prompt updates.
• Results in delays and potentially missed opportunities.
• Slower reaction times and less effective outreach.

Working with our clients, Mike and I have seen firsthand how a proactive approach not only streamlines operations but also boosts the effectiveness of outreach. However, proactively managing advisor changes can impact compensation structures, so it’s crucial to coordinate movement with finance teams to manage outcomes or have systems in place that can account for the differences. For firms that may not want to fully invest in proactive movement, a reactive approach may be sufficient.

Real-World Examples and Results

Examples of proactive rep movement in action come from our work with a couple of asset managers with AUM between five and six billion and a mix of distribution channels include intermediary, institutional, and direct. These firms, like many others, faced the challenge of tracking advisor movements regularly. They considered a few methods to manage their CRM data:

• Manually track and update contact records as they learned of a change.
• Subscribe to services, like Synfinii and Discovery Data, that proactively make updates on their behalf.
• Leverage customer data integration software to help them monitor and make updates.

Both firms opted to work with Syfinii, allowing their team to focus on their core responsibilities rather than the manual burden of tracking changes or learning a new tool. The results of embracing a proactive rep movement have been compelling:

• Stronger alignment between sales and marketing teams, improving outreach effectiveness.
• Reduced email bounce rates, enhancing email reputation and improving campaign performance.
• Time savings for sales managers, allowing them to focus on core responsibilities instead of data tracking.
• Improved client engagement, as accurate data leads to better-targeted communications and relationship-building.

As the asset management industry continues to evolve, staying ahead of advisor movements and asset shifts is crucial. Proactively managing CRM data ensures that your sales and marketing teams are prepared to protect existing assets and capitalize on new opportunities.