Strategic Financial launches client-engagement platform

UTICA — After two years of development and testing, Strategic Financial Services Inc. launched its own client-engagement platform, designed in-house, which allows clients to monitor, manage, and act on their financial plan. The company underwent a significant change in the technology it used around 2017, which spurred the desire for a client-engagement platform, Strategic Financial’s COO Kasey Williams tells The Central New York Business Journal in an interview. “There’s a lot of good tech in the ‘fin tech’ space, but there’s not one tool that gives us everything we want,” he says. Ideally, Williams notes, Strategic Financial wanted one platform that worked well with open-source products the company uses in the course of conducting business, especially Salesforce.com. Strategic Financial began looking for a platform it could add, but all options fell short of what the firm was seeking, Williams says. Some were investment focused, while others were financial-planning driven, he says. None of them did everything Strategic wanted, including talking to the technology the company already uses. By 2020, the company decided the best option was to just build its own. “2021 is when we really dove into it,” Williams adds. “Luckily, we have an individual in house who is very skilled and has a technology background,” Williams says of the design process. Designing in-house not only saved the money and additional time it would have taken if Strategic Financial outsourced the project, but it also means the company can be responsive and make changes to the platform on the fly when needed. The result is StrategicOne, which the company began to roll out in January. The platform, accessible on both desktop and mobile devices, includes easy access and management of a living financial plan, including easy-to-view dashboards in a secure portal; streamlined communication through a client-advisor communication hub; automated alerts for important tasks; simplified task management that organizes completed, pending, and upcoming tasks; a comprehensive financial overview with financial accounts all in one place for a clear view of net worth, investment portfolios, and more; secure document storage allowing customers to upload important documents; and all of the security standards and regulations of Salesforce.com. “We want our clients to know what’s going on, where they stand, and how they’re doing,” Williams says of the breadth of information available on the platform. Along with helping clients access their information, the new platform should also make things easier for their advisors, he adds. Now, after meetings with clients, advisors can set tasks on the platforms to let clients know what actions they need to take and even remind them if tasks aren’t completed. Strategic Financial has been slowly rolling the platform out to its clients after working with a beta group of client testers over the past year. With lots of positive feedback from early users, Williams says the firm will likely accelerate the rollout to the rest of its more than 1,100 clients. Founded in 1979, Strategic Financial has a team of more than 35 professionals and manages $1.8 billion in assets. It focuses on investment management, financial planning, institutional services, and corporate retirement plans. The company, headquartered in Utica, has satellite offices in Little Falls, Rochester, Rome, Syracuse, and outside of the state in West Palm Beach, Florida.