Salesforce CRM for Financial Advisors: Key Features & Integrations

Strong client relationships are key in wealth management. Effective communication can secure investors’ loyalty.

However, poor communication remains a key reason 30% might consider switching advisors.

Salesforce steps up here. Salesforce for financial advisors offers:

• A comprehensive suite of 20+ tools,
• Enhances client management,
• Automates workflows,
• Provides tools for communication personalization.

Why trust Salesforce? Robust analytics, integration with over 7,000 apps available on AppExchange, infinite customization capabilities, and smooth relationship engagement. Client satisfaction and loyalty are guaranteed.

In our blog post, we’ll assess top benefits of Salesforce for financial advisors along with integrations including its products like Experience Cloud and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement.

What is CRM for Financial Advisors?

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for financial advisors serves as a vital tool to manage client relationships and boost operations. A CRM system helps efficiently manage:

• contact details,
• personal information,
• communication preferences,
• financial goals, and history.

A CRM for financial advisors also facilitates appointment scheduling and enhances the organization and retrieval of pertinent financial data.

It empowers advisors to organize client data efficiently, predict client needs, and deliver tailored financial advice.

In an increasingly AI-powered environment, the best financial advisor CRM software should:

• integrate intelligent analytics,
• automate workflows,
• personalize customer interaction capabilities.

By leveraging AI technology, advisors can predict market trends and understand client needs, strengthening their role as trusted financial partners.

Such features not only enhance productivity but also elevate the client experience, enabling advisors to focus on strategic decision-making and relationship building.

Key Benefits of Salesforce CRM for Financial Advisors

Salesforce can become your best CRM for financial advisors with all the necessary features already within. Imagine a world where managing client relationships and business operations becomes seamless and intuitive.

You’re set to elevate your productivity and every workflow with features like:

• centralized data management,
• dynamic client interaction tools,
• insightful AI-driven analytics,

Add in rock-solid security, flexible integrations, and an engaged community, and you’ve got the ultimate toolkit to stand out in today’s fast-paced financial landscape.

Learn about key features and benefits of Salesforce CRM for financial advisors in greater detail:

1. Centralized Management of Financial Data

Salesforce CRM provides financial planners with a cohesive view of business data like:

• proprietary data,
• deal-making information,
• capital insights,
• cash flow and valuation.

It ensures immediate access to this critical information eliminating the need for data duplication.

This centralization of data from various funds allows for personalized service and better decision-making through a unified data source and for performance, risk, and strategy evaluations.

Advisors can view client financial decisions through a customer’s lens, harmonizing business processes and offering tailored solutions.

2. Enhanced Client Relationships

Salesforce prioritizes building robust client relationships by enabling financial advisors to map client relationship networks and identify growth opportunities.

This fosters stronger connections and equips advisors with clear insights to better serve their clients.

This CRM for financial advisors supports nurturing relationships by addressing individual client needs and providing tools for understanding client interactions and fostering trust.

3. Team Coordination

Salesforce CRM for financial advisors facilitates effective coordination across:

• marketing,
• sales,
• client services,
• financial planning,
• research departments etc.

It also offers a comprehensive view of customer data, regardless of geographical location.

This connectivity enhances customer experience profiles, ensuring cohesive teamwork and strategic planning.

With insights into millions of records, investment advisors, marketers, and support teams can collaborate efficiently across distributed departments worldwide.

Salesforce’s secure collaboration tools can facilitate trust through secure and transparent communication channels that keep clients informed.

4. Boosted Productivity

With Salesforce’s advanced capabilities to manage multiple clients and track significant life events, and mass communication tools, advisors can offer personalized insights and ensure business continuity through sustained client loyalty.

CRM software for financial advisors helps investment advisors meticulously track financial goals and automate routine tasks. It also supports high levels of client engagement, driving both growth and efficiency.

 

 

5. Accurate Financial Predictions

Salesforce for financial advisors addresses challenges in forecasting and reporting by providing timely client data access to support informed financial decisions and budget forecasts.

With this financial advisor CRM, advisors can predict future income, identify risks, and seize opportunities, enhancing their ability to navigate complex financial landscapes and adapt to client needs effectively.

6. Relationship Visualization

Relationship Intelligence tackles the networking challenges faced by financial planners. It reveals your firm’s connections with founders, investors, and other key individuals in your network.

Without the right insights, they risk missing or failing to close deals due to late engagement or misunderstanding key dynamics.

Salesforce CRM for financial advisors offers tools to visualize client connections, assess team interactions, and identify key opportunity contacts through a clear representation of dynamic relationships.

This holistic view within a company’s hierarchy assists advisors in identifying the strongest connections and leveraging them for strategic business opportunities.

It helps identify optimal pathways for effective deal sourcing, management, portfolio support, investor relations, and fundraising efforts.

7. Data Analysis and Reporting

Real-time analytics and AI-powered tools like CRM Analytics (formerly Tableau CRM) provide financial advisors with invaluable client insights and market trends.

Customizable reports and analytics aid in assessing:

• Revenue,
• Retention,
• Client churn,
• Mergers,
• Acquisitions,
• Venture deal viability.

With these reports, advisors gain the edge needed to stay competitive by turning data into actionable insights and optimizing fund selection.

However, for more specific reporting on capital calls & distributions, K-1 distribution, or others, you may need to integrate reporting tools like the Juniper Square platform.

If you have difficulties with integrating such investment reporting tools with your Salesforce CRM, we, at Ascendix, will help you with any type of system integration.

8. Security & Compliance

Salesforce is committed to maintaining robust security and compliance standards, adhering to over 40 international security regulations.

Role-based access and features like multi-factor authentication safeguard sensitive information, ensuring financial advisors can manage client data securely and in accordance with industry regulations.

But if you need to encrypt sensitive data or to be able to block risky user actions Salesforce offers Salesforce Shield – an advanced product suite for protecting critical customer data.

9. Platform Flexibility

The Salesforce Platform, previously known as Force.com, is a robust and flexible cloud-based solution empowering businesses to build, deploy, and manage custom applications.

As the foundation of Salesforce’s products, it offers comprehensive tools and services for app development, data management, and automation.

Salesforce Platform key features include:

• Lightning App Builder and Components: Enable the creation of visually appealing, responsive applications through drag-and-drop functionality.
• Apex: A Java-like proprietary programming language for Salesforce development, allowing complex business logic customization.
• Visualforce: A framework for developing sophisticated custom user interfaces.
• Advanced Object Model: Manages data centrally through Standard and Custom Objects.
• Flow Builder facilitates complex process automation.
• Approval Processes streamline multi-step workflow creation.
• Validation Rules and Formula Fields: Ensure data integrity and dynamic form interaction, enhancing record detail page management.
• The platform supports seamless integration with external systems via extensive API support, including REST, SOAP, Bulk, Streaming APIs, Salesforce Connect, and MuleSoft Anypoint.

Salesforce offers extensive flexibility by enabling the сustomization of features and workflows to meet the specific needs of financial sectors.

For example, financial advising firms can enhance Salesforce CRM with a custom application that automates and streamlines the financial planning process or implement risk assessment models that use real-time data to evaluate client risk levels, or incorporate scenario analysis and predictive modeling features.

This adaptability simplifies system scaling and allows seamless transitions to accommodate growing business demands and technological advancements, without the need for extensive coding.

 

 

10. Integration with Third-Party Tools

With over 7,000 add-on products available through AppExchange, Salesforce integrates seamlessly with tools like:

• DocuSign,
• Gmail, Outlook,
• Mailchimp,
• MoneyGuidePro,
• Riskalyze,
• Orion Advisor Solutions,
• Morningstar Office.

This capability enhances platform functionality by enabling real-time API-driven integrations, supporting efficient synchronization of front-office, middle-office, and back-office operations.

11. AI-Powered Conversations & Workflows

With AI, Salesforce helps financial services act early instead of just reacting later. Automated segmentation and routine task management allow advisors to focus on high-value client relationships.

Tools like Salesforce Agentforce (formerly Copilot)  analyze conversations, recommend relevant responses, and ensure comprehensive client engagement without overlooking critical details.

It provides specialized support to employees or customers via channels like web, mobile, Slack, and WhatsApp.

Agentforce offers pre-built Agents for sales, service, and marketing needs that you can quickly customize with existing Salesforce tools like prompts, flows, Apex, and APIs for various industries including investment management.

With Agentforce and Einstein Copilot tools, financial consultants can summarize necessary facts from the Salesforce records.

Or send meeting requests using data available in Salesforce.

Another Salesforce AI for financial advisors, Einstein, analyzes stored data to extract insights from the best reps, continuously refining the sales process across the team.

Einstein AI for financial advisors can automatically calculate the likelihood of client attrition.

And further, create a strategy to mitigate client attrition with Einstein’s Next Best Action.

With Salesforce Einstein, advisors also can get a recap of the call recording and email communication right within Salesforce.

Want to power up your Salesforce CRM with AI for financial advisors?

Our AI experts offer guidance on budget-friendly AI-powered solutions for Salesforce, optimizing your technology investment. Contact our team for details.

 

 

12. Regular Platform Updates

Salesforce consistently innovates through regular platform updates (three major updates a year and minor monthly updates), introducing new features, enhancing existing functionalities, and bolstering security measures.

Therefore, advisors are guaranteed access to cutting-edge tools and technologies, ensuring they remain competitive in a rapidly evolving financial landscape.

13. Trailblazer Community

The active Trailblazer community offers financial advisors a wealth of resources and support through a large, engaged network of partners, developers, and experts.

Regular webinars, meetups, and conferences provide avenues for continuous learning, networking, and sharing of best practices tailored to specific roles and locations.

14. Extensive Educational Resources

Salesforce provides a comprehensive educational platform with Trailhead, offering gamified learning experiences and tutorials for all skill levels.

With Trailhead, users and admins can enhance their platform expertise, maximizing Salesforce’s potential.

The ecosystem of partners is also available for professional guidance, ensuring optimal platform utilization and implementation.

Salesforce CRM Integrations for Financial Advisors

Additionally, you can enhance your Salesforce CRM for financial advisors with other products like:

Marketing Cloud Account Engagement

Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (formerly Pardot) empowers financial advisors and relationship managers with real-time insights on high-priority leads, client life events, and upsell opportunities, backed by Salesforce Einstein Predictive Insights for predictive lead scoring.

It enables sales and marketing teams to efficiently nurture relationships through pre-approved, targeted email campaigns, with real-time alerts for timely client engagement.

By integrating Salesforce CRM with Account Engagement, advisors can create a targeted drip campaign that guides clients through different stages of financial planning, offering specific advice and resources tailored to their age and savings goals.

Additionally, by syncing Account Engagement with Salesforce, financial consultants can:

• Promote and manage educational webinars on topics like tax optimization, estate planning, or market analysis, using Account Engagement features to handle registration, reminders, and post-event surveys.
• Implement automated reminders for clients to schedule periodic portfolio reviews, enhancing engagement and ensuring proactive management of their investments.
• Set up personalized emails to recognize significant client milestones, such as achieving a savings goal or reaching a portfolio growth target, fostering a stronger advisor-client relationship.
• Launch marketing campaigns for new financial products or funds, including targeted emails, landing pages, and follow-up communications to interested clients.
• Offer personalized investment newsletters that update clients on market trends, personalized financial strategies, and upcoming opportunities based on their portfolio.
• Send targeted emails offering estate planning consultations, particularly to clients approaching retirement age or major life events.
• Engage current clients with a referral program campaign, offering personalized incentives for introducing new prospects to the firm, tracked and managed through Account Engagement.

If you need help with Account Engagement setup, Ascendix can help you effectively set up, configure, and synchronize it with Salesforce and other marketing platforms.

Salesforce Experience Cloud

Salesforce Experience Cloud (formerly Community Cloud) allows financial advisors to build customizable portals such as help centers, customer account portals, partner platforms, and employee communities, accelerating secure document management and investor relations.

The platform’s high level of customization, click-not-code nature, and pre-built templates enable the creation of personalized layouts with minimal coding.

Through seamless integration of the portal with Salesforce CRM, advisors can synchronize data flow between them for streamlined communication and automated distribution of key documents and reports directly from your CRM to the portal ensuring a smooth experience for both you and your partners.

Experience Cloud-powered portals, financial advisors can:

• Securely share sensitive information and establish interactive touchpoints, enhancing relationships and trust with investors.
• Design branded home pages that can reinforce your firm’s identity and meet the unique needs of your investors.
• Share tailored content and key documents based on each investor’s preferences.
• Build secure data rooms for advisors, clients, investment researchers, and more.
• Segment and manage investor data keeping it organized and accessible based on investor type of business use case.
• Manage access to sensitive documents with multi-level permissions.

Clients can quickly and conveniently view portfolio performance data, including transactions, holdings, and asset allocation, helping to build trust within the advisor-client relationship.

Within portals, they can utilize dynamic, visually engaging graphs to effectively illustrate performance shifts and the underlying factors influencing account behavior over time.

Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce Service Cloud is designed to elevate customer service across various sectors by providing a comprehensive toolkit for delivering customized services efficiently.

It combines case management, omnichannel support, automation, and AI-driven insights to help firms maintain operational efficiency and ensure compliance.

These tools facilitate resolving client issues communicated through various channels (email, chat, phone, and messaging apps), while automated tools send personalized messages and updates, enhancing client experience, building trust, and improving retention.

In addition, automated workflows and AI-driven suggestions enhance case resolution.

Salesforce CRM Analytics

Salesforce CRM Analytics empowers financial consultants by providing advanced data visualization and analytics capabilities that allow advisors to comprehensively analyze:

• Fund and portfolio performance metrics,
• Financial statements,
• Identify market trends through interactive dashboards.

By integrating CRM Analytics with Salesforce CRM, fund advisors can aggregate data from multiple sources, offering a comprehensive view of potential investments to compare and select the best-performing funds.

It also facilitates compliance reporting, enhances client communication through data-driven storytelling, and enables real-time decision-making, boosting operational efficiency within money management firms.

Ascendix Search

Ascendix Search is an enhanced search and filtering app specifically designed for Salesforce users. It aims to improve data management and accessibility.

Ascendix Search’s advanced filtering capabilities enable users to create complex queries across any standard or custom Salesforce object, significantly enhancing productivity and data usability.

With Ascendix Search, advisors can improve the preparation for client reviews, ensuring comprehensive and well-informed meetings, react to market trends more quickly and propose timely investment strategies to clients, and enable personalized communication strategies and stronger client relationships.

Ascendix Search key features:

• Enables the creation of complex multi-criteria searches for more refined data retrieval. For example, financial advisors can perform advanced searches across client accounts to quickly retrieve portfolio information, filter investments by type, and assess performance metrics.
• Allows search queries across related objects, providing a flexible and comprehensive search experience. For example, financial consultants can use cross-object search to identify clients who have not updated their compliance documents or are due for a risk tolerance review.

• Facilitates the search functionality within emails and activities, offering complete access to all communication records.
• Provides an option to save favorite searches for future quick access, enhancing efficiency. For example, professionals can create and save targeted client lists based on specific criteria, such as net worth, investment interests, or recent activity, to facilitate personalized marketing outreach.

• Supports mass updates and edits directly from search results, streamlining routine data management tasks. For example, advisors can use mass actions to identify clients who may benefit from new investment opportunities or changing market conditions, based on their portfolio’s characteristics.
• Users can define and tailor search criteria to meet specific business needs and tasks.

Want to see Ascendix Search in action? Book a demo

Ascendix Composer

Ascendix Composer is a dynamic document generation tool designed to streamline the creation and automation of documents directly within Salesforce.

It empowers users to produce high-quality, consistent documents efficiently, eliminating manual processing errors and saving valuable time.

Ascendix Composer offers financial advisors the ability to create professional documentation quickly and accurately, enhancing productivity and client relations within their practice.

With Ascendix Composer, financial consultants can:

• Easily create documents with a single click using pre-defined templates.
• Customize and manage templates for various document types, ensuring consistency and branding. For example, advisors can automatically produce tailored investment proposals for potential clients using pre-defined templates that pull in relevant Salesforce data.
• Automatically merge Salesforce data into documents, ensuring accuracy and reducing the risk of errors. For example, financial consultants can create and distribute personalized performance reports to clients, integrating up-to-date financial metrics directly from Salesforce.
• Generate documents in multiple formats, including PDF, Word, and Excel.
• Send documents directly via email as attachments or links without leaving Salesforce.

• Seamlessly integrate with Salesforce approval processes to ensure documents meet required standards before distribution.

While Salesforce offers powerful products, financial advisory firms may require additional customization to align them with their unique business processes.

However, not all consultancies are created equal. Ascendix has an impressive track record of guiding capital markets, venture capital, and private equity firms through digital transformation.

Our unique blend of Salesforce expertise and deep understanding of financial markets allows us to make your CRM solution the cornerstone of your fintech evolution.

Contact us to discover how we can help you with CRM implementation, revitalization, and optimization ensuring the platform’s functionality meets your financial consultancy requirements.

How Salesforce Helped RBC Wealth Management Reduce Onboarding Time

RBC Wealth Management, a division of RBC Capital Markets, LLC, delivers expert guidance and comprehensive wealth management solutions to individuals, families, and institutions. With a network of over 2,100 financial advisors across 190 locations in 42 states, RBC leverages advanced technology to ensure a superior client experience.

This financial advisory firm implemented the following Salesforce products to streamline and consolidate its CRM systems to integrate data from existing legacy systems into a cohesive platform:

• Financial Services Cloud,
• Salesforce Shield,
• MuleSoft,
• CRM Analytics,
• Salesforce Einstein,
• Marketing Cloud.

RBC Wealth Management sought to eliminate suboptimal client experiences, such as cumbersome onboarding with lengthy documents by leveraging low-code automation and a client-centric digital interface, transforming onboarding from weeks to an average of just 24 minutes.

The new digital platform offers clients comprehensive account visibility and access to a financial advisor’s analytics dashboard for convenient portfolio management. By integrating systems with APIs, RBC accelerated innovation, reduced the IT workload, and cut maintenance costs by 50%.

Moreover, in response to stringent regulations and oversight within the financial services sector, RBC Wealth Management employed robust encryption and other security measures to safeguard clients’ personal and financial data available within the Salesforce Shield solution.

In addition, with CRM Analytics and Salesforce Einstein, RBC Wealth Management enhanced its Salesforce CRM for financial advisors’ performance based on portfolio value, revenue, and active campaigns.

Thanks to these implementations, advisors gain crucial insights and recommended actions, such as automated workflows to promptly schedule meetings with priority clients.

 

How Ascendix Can Optimize Salesforce CRM for Financial Advisors

Salesforce CRM platform empowers financial advisors with the necessary tools for delivering personalized client experiences that set them apart from the competition.

However, investment advisors often require tailored customization to align their CRM with their unique processes.

Ascendix, a Salesforce Crest Partner, brings extensive experience in guiding capital markets, venture capital, and private equity firms through transformative digital journeys and enhanced efficiency.

• Migrate existing client and financial data from legacy systems to Salesforce, ensuring data integrity and seamless transition.
• Facilitate the setup and configuration of Salesforce CRM, Account Engagement, Experience Cloud, and other relevant Salesforce products tailored to the specific needs of investment management firms.
• Enhance data security with encryption, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and fine-grained access controls to protect sensitive client information.
• Set up multi-step approval processes for investment decisions, ensuring compliance and efficiency.
• Develop custom reports tailored to regulatory requirements, client needs, and internal performance metrics.
• Seamlessly integrate Salesforce with other essential financial tools and platforms such as portfolio management systems, financial planning software, market data providers, and document management systems
• Provide Salesforce AI consulting services like choosing the right AI tool to integrate or create custom solutions.
• Create secure, self-service investor portals that provide clients with access to their portfolio performance, reports, and personalized investment recommendations.
• Offer professional Salesforce administration and support to resolve any issues quickly, minimizing downtime and ensuring smooth operation of the Salesforce system.

If you have questions on how you can optimize Salesforce for financial advisors’ needs? Book a free CRM consulting call and we’ll tell you how to get a competitive edge with Salesforce.