Speaking at the Adviser Innovation Summit 2016 last week, Mr Evans said while it is important for advisers to keep up with technology, they must not lose certain aspects that make their services valuable.
“We need to be very careful of what’s actually going on here. I can see people taking their eyes off the main game and going out and chasing this great robo-advice star in the sky,” he said.
“If you look around the world, most of the robo-advice is another way to sell a product. Technology is costly and taking your eye off the ball is costly.”
Still, Mr Evans believes implementing new technology is crucial for advice firms. This is because clients are increasingly looking for more choice when it comes to how they receive advice.
“One week they may want to go one way, and one week they may want to go another way,” he said.
“Technology allows you to do a lot of things remotely. You can use things like Skype.
“But the real thing is choice, and therefore advisers need to be up to date with what their clients are up to date with. They’re using all sorts of different apps and technology to do things.”
Ben Nash, director and client adviser at Pivot Wealth, agreed, saying this is especially true of younger clients.
“You need to be able to work with your clients on their terms, and oftentimes it involves different media,” he said.
“I think video conferencing technology is just getting better and better. I find that people still like that face-to-face contact, but I think technology is making it easier and you’ve got to work in the way your clients want to be worked with.”
