Key Takeaways

• Scaling the client experience means creating consistent, repeatable ways to deliver access, engagement, and personalization as a practice grows.

• Client portals can standardize the infrastructure around the client experience without standardizing the advice itself.

• Frequent portal use is associated with stronger satisfaction, personalization, commitment, peace of mind, and referrals.

• Repeatable onboarding, communication, task management, and planning processes can create capacity and consistency across advisory teams.

• The goal is to scale the experience, not simply the number of clients a practice serves.

Financial planning in today’s world increasingly relies on technology and using digital tools to enhance the role of a financial professional has become commonplace. And among all available technologies, the most impactful for clients is the client portal.

Research from the June 2024 Planning Better Together study by eMoney found that financial planners who use client portals can enhance client relationships while supporting business growth. Too often viewed as a digital convenience, this data reveals that client portal usage is not just helpful—it’s a strategic advantage.

For firms looking to serve more clients without sacrificing the quality of the experience, client portals can also help solve an important challenge: scale. By creating a consistent digital environment for communication, planning, collaboration, and ongoing engagement, advisors can make key parts of the client experience repeatable while still allowing the planning itself to remain personal.

Highlights: How Financial Advisors Can Improve the Client Experience at Scale

Improving the client experience at scale doesn’t mean giving every client an identical experience or replacing advisor interaction with technology. It means creating consistent, repeatable ways to deliver the access, communication, collaboration, and personalization clients value while using advisor time where it can have the greatest impact.

Financial advisors can use client portals and repeatable planning processes to:

• Give clients consistent access to their financial plans, documents, and progress
• Create repeatable workflows for onboarding, planning, and ongoing engagement
• Maintain communication and collaboration between scheduled meetings
• Personalize the experience using a more complete view of client information and activity
• Allow clients to explore aspects of their financial plans independently when appropriate
• Create visibility into tasks, recommendations, and next steps
• Deliver a more consistent experience across clients and advisory teams

eMoney research found that frequent portal usage was associated with higher client satisfaction, greater perceptions of personalization, stronger commitment to the advisor relationship, and substantially more referrals.

How Can Advisors Deliver Consistent Value as Their Practice Grows?

Financial planners are rewarded for tangible value, which is much more than simply looking at a growth number. However, many planners often struggle to articulate value beyond investment returns.

The client portal changes that. It acts as a living archive of the planner-client relationship, showcasing every plan, document, and communication. This transparency and collaboration create a tangible value proposition that clients can see and feel.

You want to be able to say to a client, “Everything I’ve delivered is in the portal. All the plans, all the updates, they are all there.” This visibility helps clients understand the full scope of their planner’s work, constantly reinforcing trust and satisfaction.

As a practice grows, this shared environment can also help advisors deliver that visibility more consistently. Instead of relying entirely on individual meetings, emails, or advisor-specific processes, a portal can provide clients with a common place to access information, understand what’s happening with their plans, and see the work being done on their behalf.

That consistency is an important part of scale. The objective isn’t to standardize the advice itself, but to standardize the experience around how clients access, understand, and participate in the planning process.

How Can Client Portals Support Personalized Experiences at Scale?

One of the most compelling indicators of client success is how frequently they engage with their client portal. The data is clear: frequent portal usage correlates with significantly stronger relationships and a more personalized planning experience. When planners work interactively with clients online throughout the planning process, satisfaction scores jump dramatically—from 50 percent without a portal, to 78 percent with a portal, and up to 89 percent when a portal is used frequently.

This isn’t just about convenience—it’s about connection. The portal becomes a shared space where clients can explore, ask questions, and track progress in real time. It fosters transparency and collaboration, two pillars of trust in financial planning.

Moreover, personalization improves with portal engagement. Among clients who were asked if their advisor provides a highly personalized planning process, 77 percent of those without a portal said yes, 87 percent of those with a portal said yes, and 93 percent of those clients of planners with a portal and frequent portal usage said yes.

These numbers reflect more than just satisfaction—they signal a shift in how clients perceive value. Planners who leverage the portal not only deliver better service but also demonstrate their commitment to tailored, client-first planning. In short, the portal isn’t just a tool—it can be a relationship accelerator.

This distinction matters for firms trying to scale. Standardizing the infrastructure around the client experience doesn’t require standardizing the relationship. A consistent digital process can give advisors more reliable access to client information and create more opportunities to tailor conversations, recommendations, and engagement to each client’s circumstances.

How Can Digital Engagement Strengthen Client Relationships?

Beyond functionality and convenience, client portals deliver real emotional value—deepening trust and enhancing the sense of being truly understood. When planners use portals to personalize and collaborate, clients respond with stronger emotional connection and confidence.

Consider this: among clients who are asked if they can say their financial planner “truly gets me,” 71 percent of those without a portal answer affirmatively, 79 percent of those with a portal say yes, and a remarkable 86 percent of those who have a portal and use it frequently say their financial planner “truly gets me.”

This jump reflects more than just satisfaction—it’s a signal that the advisor-client relationship is evolving into a more empathetic, personalized experience.

The emotional payoff continues with gaining the client’s “peace of mind.” Among clients without a portal, 73 percent report feeling peace of mind. That number rises to 82 percent with portal access and climbs to 90 percent among frequent portal users. These figures underscore how digital engagement isn’t just about data—it’s about reassurance.

When clients feel understood and supported, they’re more likely to trust, engage, and stay loyal. The portal becomes a bridge, not just to inform, but to offer emotional clarity and confidence. For planners, this means stronger relationships, better outcomes, and a practice built on trust.

For a growing practice, technology can help make these engagement opportunities available across a broader client base. Clients don’t have to wait for the next scheduled meeting to access information or reconnect with their plans, while advisors can reserve more meeting time for conversations that require their expertise, judgment, and understanding of the client’s goals.

How Can a Scalable Client Experience Support Practice Growth?

Client satisfaction is a cornerstone of advisor success—but satisfaction alone isn’t enough. What truly drives long-term business growth is the combination of satisfaction, personalization, and commitment. And the data shows that client portals are a key driver of all three.

Among clients who do not use a portal, 77 percent say they are satisfied with their financial planning professional. That number rises to 85 percent among those who use a portal and jumps to 90 percent among those who use the portal frequently. This upward trend reflects how digital engagement enhances the client experience—not just through access, but through deeper collaboration and transparency.

But satisfaction is only part of the story. When asked if they intended on maintaining a commitment with their advisor, 81 percent of clients without a portal said yes. That increases to 83 percent of those with portal access and reaches 93 percent among frequent portal users. This level of commitment is a powerful signal—it means clients aren’t just happy; they’re loyal.

For planners, these value-driven outcomes translate directly into business growth. Higher satisfaction leads to stronger retention. Greater personalization leads to more referrals. And deeper commitment means more consistent revenue and long-term planning opportunities.

The relationship between scale and growth is therefore about more than increasing the number of clients a firm can accommodate. A scalable experience should help firms maintain the characteristics that support strong client relationships—consistency, personalization, transparency, and engagement—as the practice grows.

In short, the portal isn’t just a tool—it’s a catalyst.

The Data Verifies: Stronger Relationships, Bigger Results

Adding to the tangible appeal of seeing everything your planner has done for you, research tells us planners who actively use the client portal with their clients see other enormous benefits to wallet share:

• 56 percent more total assets under management (AUM)
• 28 percent increase in average AUM per client among frequent portal users
• 13 percent more investable assets among frequent portal users

These numbers can be transformative. They show that when clients engage with the portal, they trust their planner more, share more of their financial picture, and invest more, all of which helps grow your practice.

Planning Engagement and Willingness to Pay

The portal doesn’t just help planners; it empowers clients. Portals that enable clients to test scenarios and ask questions help them dream about their financial future and gain a deeper appreciation for planning. This type of engagement can help clients better understand how individual financial decisions connect to their broader goals.

In fact, clients who frequently use the portal are willing to pay 233 percent more for a comprehensive financial plan of $1,483 compared to $637. That’s a powerful indicator of perceived value.

How Can Advisors Create a Repeatable Client Experience?

The client portal enables planners to build a repeatable process for onboarding, planning, and ongoing engagement. Templates and standalone access options make it easier to serve different client personas efficiently.

A repeatable process can establish consistent expectations for how clients move through key stages of the relationship while still allowing the advice itself to reflect each client’s needs. Firms might standardize elements such as:

• How clients provide and access financial information
• Onboarding steps and responsibilities
• How plans, documents, and recommendations are delivered
• How action items are assigned and tracked
• When and how clients receive progress updates
• How advisors engage clients between formal review meetings

Technology can also make these processes easier to share across an advisory team. When information, workflows, and client activity are centralized, firms can reduce dependence on individual advisor habits and create more seamless handoffs as teams grow.

This repeatable process leads to a consistent, elevated client experience and that’s what drives referrals.

How Can Scaling the Client Experience Drive Referrals?

Clients who use the portal frequently refer three times more people to their planner. Firms with high portal usage see 197 percent more annual referrals. Why? Because clients talk about experience.

A great financial plan is important, but a great experience is unforgettable. The portal helps deliver both.

For growing firms, referrals also put pressure on the practice to reproduce that experience for more clients. Repeatable processes and technology can help firms preserve the qualities clients valued enough to recommend—without requiring every aspect of the relationship to be recreated manually for each new client.

Scale the Experience, Not Just the Practice

If you’re a financial planner wondering how to define your value, look no further than your client portal. It’s your proof. It shows what you’ve done, how you’ve helped, and why clients should trust you.

But the larger opportunity is to use the portal as part of a repeatable client experience. Scaling a practice successfully isn’t simply about serving more clients. It’s about creating systems that allow the firm to maintain a high-quality experience as the number and needs of those clients grow.

Technology can support that effort by making information accessible, extending engagement beyond meetings, supporting consistent processes, and giving advisors more opportunities to personalize the interactions where their expertise matters most.

The result is a model in which efficiency and personalization don’t have to work against each other. Advisors can standardize the infrastructure of the client experience while continuing to tailor the planning relationship to the individual.

Give clients a secure, connected place to engage with their financial lives while creating a more consistent experience across your practice. Explore eMoney’s Client Portal

DISCLAIMER: The eMoney Advisor Blog is meant as an educational and informative resource for financial professionals and individuals alike. It is not meant to be, and should not be taken as financial, legal, tax or other professional advice. Those seeking professional advice may do so by consulting with a professional advisor. eMoney Advisor will not be liable for any actions you may take based on the content of this blog.

¹ Source: eMoney, “Planning Better Together” Research, June 2024.