4 steps to take when creating an app

Like many highly impactful endeavors, the mission started small.

Gareth Alexander, Dip PFS, BSc(Hons), simply needed to expose clients to a new branded portal where they could schedule appointments and view savings, investments and coverages.

What the three-year MDRT member from Harpenden, England, wound up with is an app that has massively increased the number of annual client touchpoints. The app has also become so popular (and public) that its number of downloads is nearly twice the business’ client roster, as non-clients/prospects can get access to newsletters, help with financial planning and more.

Efficiency and profitability are up, and clients have easy access to information that doesn’t require mailing physical copies, helping the environment and improving the likelihood they remember why particular recommendations were made.

If you’d like to create an app for your practice, Alexander, who specializes in family trust-based financial planning, recommends following these steps:

1. Learn from those who have done it before. During the 2015 Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Tracey Karen Diana Devonport, a 25-year MDRT member from Houghton, South Africa, spoke about what her company had done to launch its own app. After the presentation, Alexander sought out Devonport for further advice, which guided his next steps in development.
2. Find a company that can help you. With Devonport’s insight, Alexander searched for a local operation that specialized in apps for wealth managers. No one had that specific skill set, so Alexander looked for a company to help develop an original, customizable app. That meant targeting an established technology partner, evaluating the company’s financial strength and the service they could provide.
3. Be patient. Launched in 2017, the app took six months to develop, going through multiple drafts and being assessed weekly with the developer. They created a platform so Alexander’s team could make some changes themselves (and get help from the development team if coding was involved). It involved working late nights and weekends, but Alexander knew the long-term payoff was worth it.
4. Remain open. From draft to draft, Alexander expanded the app’s functionality, adding video content to explain the portal, how clients can communicate with advisors, information on local regulations and much more. Establishing push notifications has been hugely successful as well, with 90% of these messages sent to clients’ phones read within three minutes of being received.

Read six more steps in the Round the Table article.