What Portability Provided for Provident
Basingstoke-based trading company Provident Life finds that portable computers have had a very positive effect on customers, says financial adviser Ray Brown. The company has financial advisers operating all around the country, many at great distances from their nearest office. Previously this meant a trek to the office or a wait of days whenever a quotation was needed, making business slow, time consuming, expensive, and often frustrating.
Now, instead, Brown and the other 35 advisers carry around Toshiba Tl200XEs. People are very impressed by the portable, he says. If you're telling them about growth rates or how we've performed in the past, if it's on screen it's really credible, whereas otherwise, they might occasionally doubt what I have to say. A short session with the facts and figures displayed in graphic form on screen can save the customer several days of touring around high street brokers, trading company and building societies, for in addition to producing quotations for trading policies, the system also runs a mortgage matching service.
The advisers can take any variable of their clients circumstances and produce the best deal offered by Provident Life, which has reserved funds available from a variety of mortgage lenders. funding information is stored on disk and regularly updated back at head office. Details such as likely survey fees, indemnity guarantee premiums and so forth, are also on disk. Thus the client gets a full picture of the likely costs involved in buying a new home - in the convenient surroundings of their existing one.
Instant access to current information is what makes the portable computers such a useful sales accessory. The sheer professionalism of being able to display almost any permutation of facts and figures on screen is vastly superior to the old fashioned tables and rate books. It's important, for example, to find out how much the client is willing to spend. By seeing several options on the computer, Brown's customers can usually agree a realistic base from which to work. Once the adviser has assessed the financial position of his clients accurately, he can decide what financial services will best suit their needs. He then prepares various options, stores them and goes back to the clients to present them conveniently and swiftly - and then uses the computer to print up a letter of confirmation and thanks to his customer.
The Toshiba enables the adviser to fulfill various legal requirements - such as printing out quotations for the customer - and none of this requires recourse to head office for help. The savings in time and administration are huge, but the impact on customers and salespeople from using the computers is what is really important.
I think we all dreaded using them at first, says Brown, but I don't think anyone would want to be without it now. I view it as an invaluable tool, and would hate to go back to the old system.
-----------------------
Basingstoke-based trading company Provident Life finds that portable computers have had a very positive effect on customers, says financial adviser Ray Brown. The company has financial advisers operating all around the country, many at great distances from their nearest office. Previously this meant a trek to the office or a wait of days whenever a quotation was needed, making business slow, time consuming, expensive, and often frustrating.
Now, instead, Brown and the other 35 advisers carry around Toshiba Tl200XEs. People are very impressed by the portable, he says. If you're telling them about growth rates or how we've performed in the past, if it's on screen it's really credible, whereas otherwise, they might occasionally doubt what I have to say. A short session with the facts and figures displayed in graphic form on screen can save the customer several days of touring around high street brokers, trading company and building societies, for in addition to producing quotations for trading policies, the system also runs a mortgage matching service.
The advisers can take any variable of their clients circumstances and produce the best deal offered by Provident Life, which has reserved funds available from a variety of mortgage lenders. funding information is stored on disk and regularly updated back at head office. Details such as likely survey fees, indemnity guarantee premiums and so forth, are also on disk. Thus the client gets a full picture of the likely costs involved in buying a new home - in the convenient surroundings of their existing one.
Instant access to current information is what makes the portable computers such a useful sales accessory. The sheer professionalism of being able to display almost any permutation of facts and figures on screen is vastly superior to the old fashioned tables and rate books. It's important, for example, to find out how much the client is willing to spend. By seeing several options on the computer, Brown's customers can usually agree a realistic base from which to work. Once the adviser has assessed the financial position of his clients accurately, he can decide what financial services will best suit their needs. He then prepares various options, stores them and goes back to the clients to present them conveniently and swiftly - and then uses the computer to print up a letter of confirmation and thanks to his customer.
The Toshiba enables the adviser to fulfill various legal requirements - such as printing out quotations for the customer - and none of this requires recourse to head office for help. The savings in time and administration are huge, but the impact on customers and salespeople from using the computers is what is really important.
I think we all dreaded using them at first, says Brown, but I don't think anyone would want to be without it now. I view it as an invaluable tool, and would hate to go back to the old system.
-----------------------
