AI is not what you think. The biggest objection advisors raise is that automation feels impersonal. But the real story is about who actually gets served, and one of our smartest advisors learned it the hard way.
The setup
We work with one of the smartest advisors we know. We set up automation and agentic workflows around the servicing he wanted to deliver, segmented by A clients, B clients, and C clients.
While we were implementing the strategy, he said: leave the A's to me. I want to manually put that special personalization on top. Fair enough, right? Give your A clients a little extra love and personalize the email yourself.
What actually happened
Next time we spoke, the first thing he said was: we need to automate all of my A client touchpoints. We asked what went wrong.
He realized he had provided a better servicing experience to his B and C clients, because the automations handled them. All the work he promised to do for the A's by hand, he simply never got to. He was the bottleneck, so his best clients got the least attention.
What clients actually care about
The most common objection we hear is: I do not want to come across as if we do not care or we are not personalizing it. Some of that is true.
But the biggest thing people care about is the servicing. They do not care who sent the email. They just want to know they can get on your calendar and spend the time they feel they deserve with you. That is why AI is not always what you think it is.
Frequently asked questions
- Does automating client communication make advisors seem impersonal?
- Not in practice. Clients care most about the servicing experience and getting time with you, not about who sent a given email. Automation that improves responsiveness improves the relationship.
- Why did manually personalizing top clients backfire?
- The advisor became the bottleneck. The automated B and C clients received consistent service while the A clients he reserved for himself got neglected because he never got to the work.
- Should advisors automate their best clients' touchpoints?
- Yes. Automating A client touchpoints ensures they receive consistent, timely service instead of waiting on a busy advisor who may never get to the manual work.
- What do clients value most from their advisor?
- The servicing and the access. Clients want to know they can get on your calendar and spend meaningful time with you, more than they care about who pressed send.