Customer Relationship Management

There’s nothing like a great recession to teach financial professionals that marketing is every employee’s responsibility. In the past year, successful hedge funds learned to embrace that tenet, making marketing and investor relationship activities higher priorities than ever before. In the changing market where competition is fierce for capital investments and client retention, every touch point with an existing or potential investor is critical to building credibility, trust and rapport. These firms have found that through increased client service and effective outreach to potential investors, they can protect their funds even during a serious economic downturn. Top fund managers now prioritise their task lists differently, putting more of a focus on marketing and investor relationships than ever before. Managers are expanding their job descriptions to include responsibilities aimed at:

• cultivating investor relationships;
• repairing investor trust through transparent business practices;
• enhancing market reputation; and
• gaining competitive edge by employing communication tools, marketing techniques and technology.

Technologically, customer relationship management (CRM) applications are enabling financial professionals to meet the new obligations of their positions. The move to CRM was certainly sparked by the downturn in the market; when investors feared losing money, they demanded more information and insight into their investments.

Rather than scrambling to address individual investor questions as they arise, forward-thinking fund managers implemented CRM applications to manage these queries more efficiently. Many firms now use CRM as the foundation for investor extranets that deliver on-demand access to transaction histories, account balance statements and other fund information.