Blog/ Partner Updates

New Integration: Wealthbox CRM and Smith.ai Virtual Receptionist Services

Virtual Receptionists and CRM allow financial advisors to be more productive.

October 18, 2018

Wealthbox CRM is happy to announce an integration with Smith.ai, a leading virtual receptionist provider. Smith.ai, via the Wealthbox API, now integrates with Wealthbox CRM so each call handled by a Smith.ai receptionist is documented in your Wealthbox account immediately after the call.

Watch the Wealthbox + Smith.ai recorded webinar

How advisors can benefit from Wealthbox CRM and Virtual Receptionist Services from Smith.ai

Financial advisors managing a solo or small firm have a dilemma: new clients are most likely to hire the most responsive business they call or email, so you want to be responsive, but you also need to reduce interruptions to maintain productivity. How do you grow the business by capturing leads and also service existing clients? There’s often not enough bandwidth to go around.

The solution is to recruit help, and it doesn’t have to come at the high ticket price of in-house staff. You can quickly capture, qualify, and intake leads with virtual receptionists.

Here’s how to do that and a whole lot more with the new integration of Wealthbox and Smith.ai:

Quickly capture leads

Whether your leads are from PPC ads, organic search, or boosted Facebook posts, the marketing agency you might be paying for can only deliver them; conversion is on you. Wait to respond, and they’ve already reached another financial planner or advisor.

The problem is, your day is booked up with meetings, billing tasks, and admin chores. There’s no time for call-backs or extra interruptions. The way to make time is to get someone to not only answer your phones, but also respond to leads coming through your web forms.

A team of virtual receptionists from Smith.ai  can answer one or multiple incoming calls at once. You can also auto-forward those web-form lead notification emails to them, and they’ll call the leads, capturing them at the time of intent — before they have had time to sign up with another advisor.

Efficiently qualify leads

What do you do once you nab a live one? Empower the receptionists to qualify the lead based on your custom criteria. They can ask things like…

  • Are you looking for a one-time financial assessment or ongoing services?
  • Are you aware of the firm’s fees, and are these fees within your budget?
  • Where are you located? Are you aware the firm is in X-location and would provide services to you by phone and video chat only?
  • The firm is currently only accepting clients with net assets of $Y. Does that reflect your current financial situation?

These are just a few examples of the types of qualifying questions virtual receptionists are capable of handling to vet and filter new clients. They’ll record the answers and, based on your instructions, either flag them as a good potential client or as an unqualified lead.

Book appointments (with & without payment)

Whether it’s a call-back or a new client consultation, Smith.ai’s receptionists can schedule the appointment directly on your calendar, which syncs with Wealthbox, so all your systems work together.

Never settle for a post-call summary that needs to be copied and pasted into your calendar from your email or a text message. Automated workflows can be implemented so routine tasks like that are minimized.

If you charge for consultations, payment can be accepted over the phone and input securely in your system. AdvicePay and other solutions offer easily embeddable website scripts, calendar and CRM integrations, and notifications, so revenue is promptly captured and reliably tracked.

What’s special about Smith.ai?

Smith.ai offers professional, U.S.-based receptionists that answer, transfer, and return calls during business hours, freeing you up to complete client work, network, and do everything else that no one but you can do.

The “AI” in the Smith.ai name stands for “artificial intelligence,” and it powers the following features, and more:

  • Automatic spam blocking of 20 million numbers
  • Live call transfer requests via SMS and Slack
  • Easy status changes via SMS (e.g., text “Do Not Disturb” when you begin a client meeting)
  • Instant call notes via email, SMS, or Slack

Unlike most live answering services, billing is per-call, not per-minute. Potential clients who need to explain their need for a financial advisor in detail? New clients who need to complete an intake form? Clients who need to track down their credit card to book a consult? These calls can take 3 to 5 minutes. You get consistent billing when you’re charged per-call.

Smith.ai provides:

  • Inbound & outbound calls
  • Lead capture & qualification
  • Appointment scheduling & reminders
  • Customized call handling procedures
  • Coverage Monday to Friday, 6AM to 6PM PST / 9AM to 9PM EST
  • Call screening, prioritization, and VIP lists
  • Instant call summaries and end-of-day reports
  • Voicemails transcribed and sent to email or SMS

With plans starting at $60/month, financial advisors get the experience and quality of an in-house receptionist at a small fraction of the price.

Here’s what two long-time Wealthbox CRM and Smith.ai users had to say:

“One of the advantages of being able to integrate Wealthbox and Smith.ai together is that it allows for the initial steps of my prospecting process to be automated. Potential clients call in and make an appointment, and their details are then already in Wealthbox for me to add to after our appointment. It’s also helpful for existing clients as records of their phone calls get created immediately in Wealthbox. It saves me time and money.” Dave Grant, CFP®, Founder & Financial Planner, Retirement Matters, Inc. 

“I was an early adopter of both Wealthbox CRM and Smith.ai, so this integration is great news! Smith.ai has been a big win for me because I spend less time on the phone and more time in front of clients. Wealthbox is one of my most used apps because it’s so easy to use and it’s the true “hub” of my practice. So connecting these 2 technologies will make both more powerful.”  Greg Brown, CFP®, Founder and Principal, Pathway Financial Planning 

Connecting Smith.ai and Wealthbox

Smith.ai integrates with Wealthbox CRM so each call handled by a Smith.ai receptionist is documented in your Wealthbox account immediately after the call. Below, we explain how the integration works and the three easy steps required for setup.

How the Wealthbox & Smith.ai integration works
Connecting your Wealthbox account with Smith.ai means that after each call is handled by one of our receptionists, the following will automatically occur:

  • A new contact is created with the name, phone, and email address.
  • A new “note” is created in a contact’s record containing the full text of the post-call summary (for both new and existing contacts).
  • The record creation event and new note appear as activities within the contact’s activity timeline.

Once this new contact is created, you can add tags, add related contacts, change visibility, and take other actions that best fit with how you want to handle that record in your account.

How to connect your Wealthbox account to Smith.ai
Once you have accounts with both Wealthbox and Smith.ai, getting started is as easy as these three steps:

  1. Log in to your Wealthbox account, click on the three vertical dots next to your name in the top-right corner, and go to “Settings.”
  2. Select “API Access” from the menu on the left, and click on the button “Create Access Token.” Label the access token “Smith” and save it.
  3.  Copy the access token and email it to Smith.ai at support@smith.ai with the subject line, “Wealthbox CRM Integration.”

That’s it! Smith.ai will let you know as soon as the integration setup is complete, typically within 1 business day. Once your accounts are linked, you’ll see new Wealthbox contacts and notes added automatically after each call.

Watch the Wealthbox + Smith.ai recorded webinar

Contact Smith.ai for assistance
Not sure how you can best use Wealthbox with Smith.ai receptionists? Smith.ai’s support team is happy to discuss implementation options and best practices. You can reach Smith.ai Support Monday through Friday, 6:00 am to 6:00 pm PST / 9:00 am to 9:00 pm EST via phone at (650) 727-6484 or via email at support@smith.ai.

Get started with $100 off
You can sign up for Smith.ai risk-free, covered by their 14-day money-back guarantee. Sign up for a free consultation or get started at https://smith.ai. Wealthbox users get $100 off their first month with code WEALTHBOX100.

New to Wealthbox?
Advisors, see what the buzz is about. Start a free trial of Wealthbox today!

Maddy Martin - Smith.ai
Thanks to Maddy Martin, head of marketing and partnerships at Smith.ai for co-authoring this post. Maddy can be reached at maddy@smith.ai.
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