Hearsay Systems on Tuesday announced a new client retention platform specifically for registered investment advisors.
It is designed to meet the needs of small and medium-sized RIAs with fewer than 50 employees for social networking, SMS, and website functionality.
While many advisors to the independent RIA channel may not be familiar with Hearsay, over the past decade it has become a popular platform for delivering compliant digital communications between corporate financial services organizations, including large wealth management and insurance organizations. It currently claims to work with more than 200,000 consultants and agents in these industry segments.
“We’ve always had independent RIA customers, but with this new offering, we’ve focused on building something that meets the needs of the small but growing mid-market RIA,” said Mike Boese, CEO of Hearsay.
Included in its announcement is a partnership with national RIA Mercer Advisors.
“For the past six months, we’ve engaged with this user base and asked them what they need, both in terms of setup and on an ongoing basis,” Boese said, noting that some organizations will already have more capabilities than others .
Mercer, with more than $38 billion in total assets under management, has acquired 15 new firms so far in 2022, totaling $6.6 billion in assets under management.
“As one of the country’s first independent RIA firms, we want our consultants to be able to securely access the tools they want, through the channels their clients and prospects prefer, without worrying that they’re going to be lost violating compliance,” said Gary Foodim, CMO of Mercer Advisors. “We chose to partner with Hearsay because it offers our team high-quality content for social posts, while opening up new options for texting and calling—all in an easy-to-use platform. We believe Hearsay will be a game changer for our advisors.”
The new platform bundles several different Hearsay products, including the Social, Sites and Relate offerings, into one integrated system.
The social portion of the new platform supports a consulting firm’s social media publishing and messaging needs, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and includes automated help with campaign creation and client personalization capabilities.
It should be noted that Hearsay also does serious social research and publishes annual research on financial services usage on social media, including what works best across different networks.
Hearsay’s Sites technology enables consultants to create mobile-friendly websites and leverage the company’s extensive experience in search engine optimization. Perhaps even more important is Hearsay’s content engine, which will provide a consulting firm with compliant articles that can be easily personalized and automated to publish.
Finally, Hearsay’s Relate technology offers SMS, voice, desktop and mobile communication options and content.
Boese said another aspect of his corporate focus will also benefit growing RIAs like Mercer over the years, as administrators in a company can easily manage hierarchies and permissions, making it easier to expand and add new features.
Hearsay also has deep integrations with two CRM systems commonly used by some RIAs — Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365. And the company integrates with Smarsh, Global Relay, and Proofpoint on the SEC-compliant communications archiving side.
Hearsay does not publicly publish or share its awards.
“Pricing is broadly based on the number of users and the skills you need – suffice it to say it’s going to be competitive,” said Boese, who emphasized that his firm is ahead of competitors in the RIA market have examined the prices offered.
“We have a best practice lexicon that is ready to use and available out of the box and if you need more on other services such as compliance we can supply and we will go as far as to help you manage and take on some of the administrative aspects he said, referring to Hearsay’s more turnkey managed services offering.
Founded in 2009, Hearsay Systems is now a client of New York Life, Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab and Ameriprise.
