“Our client base actually remembers how to use a phone,” says one advisor
Thursday’s Microsoft Outlook outage, which stretched into the early hours of Friday morning, drove home the importance of redundancies, contingencies, and analog technology for advisors.
For Scott Starratt, Investment Advisor and Portfolio Manager at Starratt Wealth Management of Canaccord Genuity in Calgary, the email outage was largely a “non-issue.” His firm’s CRM system as well as other tech tools continued to function, which allowed for internal and external communication to continue.
While he admits to feeling some concerns that a client might be trying to get a hold of him, or that something he sent earlier in the day didn’t go through, Starratt says that the universal nature of the outage meant most people were informed and understanding.
Even if he managed to largely avoid much hardship during the outage, Starratt says that there was a useful reminder for advisors and dealers about redundancy in their technology stacks.
“You better have a way that you can continue business. This [outage] was a pretty short one, but imagine if it went a few days,” Starratt says. “You would have to pick up the phone and talk to people again because we are so reliant on especially email. For a lot of businesses, not just investment, that's their primary mode of communication now.”
Starratt adds that redundancies can extend beyond the digital realm. He suggests that advisors might want to consider using multiple phone service providers for their office lines and personal cell phones, for example, as a way to ensure they can always communicate if that side of the tech ecosystem is disrupted.
For Laurel Marie Hickey, Senior Wealth Advisor and Senior Portfolio Manager at iii Global Wealth of Wellington-Altus Private Wealth Inc., the afternoon passed with a somewhat eerie quiet, one that allowed her to focus on client meetings. Hickey was scheduled to spend the day on the road, alongside one of her new junior associates, meeting with clients in the Calgary area. On days like those she'll check her email in between meetings, or make requests for additional prep materials from her team. When she saw no messages coming though, she figured her team was busy and her clients weren't trying to find her.
"There's a cafe that I love to go to in the area were were working that day, so when we got in the car and looked at our emails, we thought the day was quiet and we could go get a muffin," Hickey says. "I had brought my associate along to give him a sense of what client meetings are like, and the coffee break gave us a chance to chat about the previous meeting. I'm now thinking I should do that more."
Hickey says that the relative silence of the day might hold some lessons for advisors, especially when they're on the road, to stay focused on the in-person client meetings they're attending while trusting their team in the office to handle what's coming through the physical and digital doors.
The outlook outage occurred amid some market volatility on Thursday as the stock of the world’s largest company by market capitalization, Nvidia, fell dramatically following the shock resignation of CEO Jensen Huang. Despite scary headlines that might spook some clients, Starratt says his capacity to reassure wasn’t impacted because.
“Our client base actually still remembers how to use a phone,” he says. “So anyone who knew what was going on could pick up the phone and call us.”
Did you have a different experience of the outlook outage? Send a note to [email protected] to share your story.
