While overall customer satisfaction with wealth management mobile apps improved this past year, wealth management apparently still lags other industries when it comes to overall user experience.
According to J.D. Power’s 2021 U.S. Wealth Management Mobile App Satisfaction Study, wealth management firms have invested heavily in upgrading their apps, with 75% making feature enhancements in the past year, up from 44% a year ago. And these efforts have contributed to greater utilization, improved engagement and higher overall customer satisfaction scores, the firm notes.
“The pace of customer adoption of mobile has accelerated dramatically across virtually every industry, and that’s both an opportunity and a challenge for wealth management firms,” says Michael Foy, Senior Director of Wealth Intelligence at J.D. Power. “Clearly, the investment that firms have put behind their digital strategies is having a positive effect on app user experience and overall utilization rates, but that same thing is happening everywhere, and some industries are just moving faster.”
Foy explains that wealth management firms have some unique challenges because of legacy back-end technology and the sheer complexity and range of services they need to provide. “But there are unique opportunities to leverage an app to deliver relevant educational content and facilitate communication with advisors,” he says.
The study is based on responses from 3,025 full-service and self-directed investors fielded in July and August 2021, and looks at five key factors in order of importance: range of services, clarity of information, ease of navigating, appearance and screen loading speed.
Satisfaction and Usage
According to the findings, overall customer satisfaction with wealth management mobile apps this year is 858 (on a 1,000-point scale)—up nine points from a year ago. Major contributors of this increase are speed, range of services offered and overall appearance.
Moreover, the number of customers using their wealth apps daily has increased four percentage points year over year and the number using them multiple times per day has increased three percentage points, the study notes.
Yet, despite increased customer satisfaction, overall customer satisfaction with wealth apps trails average app satisfaction scores in J.D. Power studies in the banking (860), credit card (867) and insurance (877) industries. While wealth management firms are spending big on updates, with 31% introducing major feature updates this year, that number jumps to 33% for credit card apps and 50% for banking apps, the study further observes.
A key differentiator and opportunity for wealth management apps versus those of other industries is direct line connectivity to human advisors. Still, according to the study, just 44% of wealth app users who work with an advisor say they communicate with them via the app—which is unchanged from 2020.
J.D. Power further suggests that app-based investor education can improve. While firms are proficient in providing apps with market-related news and information, many are lacking in delivering personalized content and guidance. Here, the study notes that 51% of customers “strongly agree” that their wealth app provides tailored insights and content. What’s more, just 47% say it is very easy to research investment options on their wealth app.
“Customer expectations for a seamless multi-channel experience are rising rapidly in line with significant investment and innovation for nearly every customer touch point across every industry,” observes Amit Aggarwal, Senior Director of Digital Solutions at J.D. Power. “The key for wealth management firms to level up in this competitive environment is to heavily lean into their unique value propositions, making it easy and intuitive for investors to move seamlessly between the app and other digital or human channels, while delivering personalized guidance and important information along the way.”
With a score of 884, U.S. Bancorp Investments ranks highest in overall customer satisfaction with wealth management apps, followed by Chase Mobile (876), Merrill Edge (870), Wells Fargo Mobile (869) and Ameriprise Financial (868) rounding out the top five.
