Video advice: personal & convenient

Even before the pandemic hit, perceptions of digital banking were changing for the better. Pre COVID-19, 10 percent of clients showed interest in video advice; this figure has doubled in the last year.  

Today, 20 percent of our Swiss clients prefer to receive financial advice via video meeting for complex topics, like mortgages, investments and retirement. “We expect that demand for high-quality advice via this channel will increase in the coming years, when looking at the growth developments in other European markets,” explained Sabine Keller-Busse, President UBS Switzerland. 

Video advice is positioned as personal and quality advice, which is also highly convenient as it’s accessible from home or the office, during the day or in the evening. To deliver this channel, UBS Switzerland built in a new Remote Sales & Advice organization in Personal Banking, Corporate and Institutional Clients and Wealth Management in a hugely limited time, with dedicated remote advisors and new technology.  

Like many industries, it’s all down to supply and demand. 

“We found that the number of clients who needed video consultations exceeded the number of advisors we had available,” explained Head Personal Banking Simone Westerfeld. “Therefore, we decided to scale up our Remote Advice Hubs.”  

Our remote advisors conduct between three and four advice meetings per day and client satisfaction, which is measured after each meeting, is very high. It’s clear that our clients consistently value the convenience, extended opening hours and professional set-up on offer. And, of course, the advice is personal and tailored to their needs; not a call center experience.  

“We positively surprised clients. Although we use call center technology, our advisors are experienced and provide personal and individual advice,” said Arnoud Rozendaal, Head Remote Sales & Advice in Personal Banking. 

Many clients cover their basic banking needs via digital banking, but, for complex topics like mortgages, investment and retirement planning, many still want personal advice from a client advisor, now increasingly in the most convenient way: through video consultation. By doing so, they have the chance to ask all the questions they want, while still saving time by talking to their advisor from home or office, and so taking away the need to travel to the branch. Remote advice meetings are also shorter, on average 45 minutes, and more focused due to the nature of a virtual discussion. And, with 25 percent of meetings taking place in the evening, it’s especially convenient for people who working during the day or prefer a discussion once their children are in bed. 

“Clients love video advice because it is more convenient. They can talk to their advisor from home or the office, during the day or in the evening,” said Sabine. 

It took a lot of hard work to get the new Remote Sales & Advice organization off the ground, and involved recruiting advisors from branches to work in our Remote Advice Hubs and training them on advising clients remotely. In short, the advice stays the same; it’s the same product, but presented in a different way. The advisor needs to be very structured and to the point in their explanation, as well as building trust and a human connection through video, while not being able to take the usual cues from body language. 

Creating a simple, digital and secure process by using off-the-shelf technology and tactical solutions to allow for a fast time to market was top priority in making sure that advisors could work from home with minimal disruption to the client service. We also made sure to track each step in the journey. Initially, this was done manually, but we’re now digitizing that process to drive continuous optimization. Advisors in the branches were also equipped with video advice capabilities to keep our offering consistent and we also became paperless, being one of the first to use e-signature at scale. 

“We had to do a ten-year sprint in only two years,” Simone explained. 

With expectations that client demand for video advice in Switzerland will further increase in the coming years, services will be scaled even more to give more clients access to advice wherever it suits them best. Aside from allowing us to deliver a service clients want, this increase in availability is also in part made possible thanks to the economic benefits of video advice, as, by serving more clients in more meetings per day, UBS can grow revenue incrementally and reduce cost.  

To the outside world, there is one UBS.

It’s likely that some of these clients will be remote only, while others will be hybrid clients, combining video advice with face-to-face meetings. In the end, our goal is to build a client needs driven distribution model, in which the channels operate seamlessly together. “To the outside world, there is one UBS, and clients can choose the channel they prefer,” said Sabine.