Best & Worst Wealth Firms for Digital Experience: J.D. Power, 2024

Forty-four percent of self-directed clients in the new study strongly agreed that they expect their wealth management firm’s websites and apps to help them meet their financial goals, up from 40% a year ago.

Among this group who expect these tools, 30% said they do not strongly agree that their firm is delivering on this expectation. This percentage rises to nearly 80% among those who say they somewhat agree that they are expecting help.

When websites and mobile apps meet key criteria for delivering beyond foundational levels, overall satisfaction scores among both full-service and self-directed clients rise substantially, by more than 100 points on a 1,000-point scale. Moving to the top of the hierarchy results in truly differentiated experiences, respondents said.

Clients’ perceptions of data security strongly influence overall satisfaction scores, according to the study. Among full-service clients, satisfaction scores are 147 points lower when they have concerns about their personal information being very secure. For self-directed clients with those concerns, scores are 145 points lower.

“In a world in which firms are offering no-fee trades and many of the basics of the user experience are similar from one brand to the next, the digital experience hierarchy has increasingly become a critical means of differentiation,” Jon Sundberg, senior director of digital solutions at J.D. Power, said in the statement.

“The fastest path to delivering on growing customer expectations for digital is to deliver a truly personalized level of engagement that takes each client’s unique needs and goals into account.”

The accompanying charts break down full-service and self-directed clients’ satisfaction with firms that scored above and below the average satisfaction score.