Making the switch
When you’ve been in the wealth management industry for almost two decades, you know good technology when you see it. That’s how Dana Tomisek, Director of Operations & Client Experience at Evermay Wealth Management, felt when she started working with Envestnet | Tamarac. She joined her new firm knowing they needed to improve their operations, and she knew just the tool to do it.
“We knew we needed to integrate our CRM more effectively. Advisors needed more consistent data flows and flexibility, an automation mindset—and our old system couldn’t do that for us,” Dana explains.
While Dana tried for a period to make their previous CRM platform work, she realized that what Evermay really needed was Envestnet | Tamarac’s CRM.
“Anything that I would want to do or that an advisor would come to me and say, ‘why can't I have this?’ I would say, ‘well, Tamarac CRM could do that’. And that just kept being my answer, over and over again,” Dana recalls.
Because she had used the Tamarac platform for years at her previous firm, she knew what it was capable of. Within six months, she got Evermay to make the switch.
Dana wanted to get creative with what advisors needed and push the boundaries of what the system could do by:
- Reducing manual work to enable advisors to spend more time with clients
- Improving communications and follow-ups with clients
- Automating ongoing manual functions
- Streamlining compliance tasks
To accomplish all this, Dana had to recruit a technology whiz to help, which is where her colleague Mai Ramirez came in.
Automating excellence
Once Mai joined the firm as the Information Systems Manager, she got to work with Dana right away. Together, they began doing an audit of the system and the firm’s needs, building data workflows and conditions, and working with their users to understand what integrations were needed. They realized that advisors were doing too much manual work to prepare for client meetings and saw they lacked the systems needed to follow up after meetings.
Dana and Mai addressed these challenges by:
- Connecting HubSpot, Outlook, and Tamarac CRM to create a seamless meeting workflow that automates scheduling, sends meeting reminders to both advisors and clients, delivers preparation alerts three days in advance, assists advisors with follow-up after meetings, and sends reminders about incomplete meetings after seven days
- Generating client data reports through Schwab integration
- Supporting AI note-taking during client meetings
- Automating manual compliance tasks to increase efficiency
- Leveraging Schwab’s integration with Envestnet | Tamarac to automatically track Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs), eliminate manual data entry, verify completion status, and alert the advisory team when action is needed
“Client expectations are high. They want quick turnaround times. We say all the time that we can’t control the market, but we can control how quickly we respond,” Dana confirms.
The Tamarac platform has enabled advisors to respond more quickly, with better information. “Good, clean data is critical,” both Dana and Mai emphasize.
Another piece of the puzzle has been the Client Portal. Evermay has rolled out the mobile app for clients so they can see their financial information in the Client Portal and easily connect with advisors. Automated, same-day notes from client meetings are also helping advisors respond to client needs.
“The system is thinking on your behalf so you don’t have to remember every little detail,” says Dana.
“You put more technology into the relationship so that you can get more human interaction from that relationship.”
Dana Tomisek, Director of Operations & Client Experience at Evermay Wealth Management
Building better together
Dana and Mai have been happy with recently released enhancements to the platform. “The new enhancements are letting us get to the finish line with some of our bigger projects, and our users are getting excited about it,” Dana says.
Like any good technology adoption, getting user feedback is key. Their advisors are seeing the upside of having the system automate manual tasks, especially for compliance. They’re also seeing how some processes, which used to take days, only need spot checks following the latest updates. As Dana summarizes, “There’s less pushback when users see how it makes their lives easier.”.
Evermay appreciates the relationships they’ve built with the Envestnet support team. “When we run into a roadblock with a tough issue, Envestnet presents a solution,” Mai says. “Envestnet is really listening to their users and what they like about the system, and the things we want, and they’re making an effort to address them.”
Expansion and growth on the horizon
Growth is in Evermay’s future. As they evaluate potential mergers and acquisitions and work to expand their business, their top priority is ensuring their clients will be taken care of. “When you have processes and systems in place, a firm is more attractive to M&A activities,” Dana says. “But it has to be growth the right way, not just for the sake of it… there is a calculated approach to it, and Envestnet helps us do that.”
The technology is taking care of advisors, as well. “We don’t want their day controlled by systems and bogged down by manual processes,” says Dana.
Evermay’s goal is to empower their advisors to do what they do best: build relationships and spend time with their clients. Envestnet has enabled Evermay to do that in ways they didn’t think possible in the beginning. And today, they’re seeing the results.
See how other advisory firms are using Envestnet wealth management technology to grow their business at https://www.envestnet.com.
