How Financial Firms Can Drive More Business With One Simple Fix

**Imagine that a financial advisor from a competing firm has just been recruited to join your team. You've done everything to ensure a seamless transition, such as transferring client assets and assisting with onboarding. But six months in, you notice a problem with the newly acquired advisor: the phone number from their previous employer is still reflected on their listings – on Google, Facebook, WiserAdvisor, and many other publishers across the web. As a result, potential clients come across that outdated, incorrect phone number and end up calling the wrong firm. And when that happens, the old firm typically absorbs that call and directs the lead to someone within their organization — meaning your advisor (and your firm) lose their business. What does this mean for you? It's no secret to understand the immediate impact this has on you: lost business, and all because of a wrong phone number. But in reality, that wrong phone number can negatively impact your business in a number of different ways:

1. Search. As part of Prominence (which is one of the three main criteria that Google uses to determine where to rank businesses in search), Google states that they will reference how your business appears across the web – which includes other online business directories. Inconsistent data across listings sends poor trust signals to Google. That means if you have different phone numbers listed on the web for the same financial advisor, (or any conflicting listings data for that matter), that listing is less likely to rank when someone searches for something along the lines of "financial advisor" or "financial consultant near me."
2. Poor experience for existing clients. Potential clients aren't the only ones trying to contact financial advisors; existing clients inquire about new products and have questions about their portfolio performance. Constant phone calls to the wrong financial advisor will result in frustrated clients who could be more susceptible to allocate their assets with another firm. This isn't the kind of client experience you want to deliver, and it's not the way to grow your business — meaning it's imperative that firms find a solution that can correct this issue. How to prevent the wrong phone number from appearing on advisor listings When you consider the number of financial advisors multiplied by the hundreds of third-party sites that advisors can be listed on, it's easy to see why most firms prefer to use another vendor to automate their listings management strategy. The problem with most listings vendors and why they are not able to effectively update the old phone number stems from their approach to listings: most listings vendors only use API integrations with a handful of sites, like Google, Facebook, and a few others. Then, to update the advisor's phone number on the hundreds of other sites across the web, they rely mainly on aggregators and data submissions. The reason why this approach doesn't work is simple: Aggregators and data submissions are considered to be far less trustworthy data sources, meaning publishers often don't accept the data that they receive from them. That's why using a solution that heavily relies on data aggregators doesn't effectively update the old phone number for the advisors that you've recruited from another firm. On the other hand, our approach to listings at Yext is different from other vendors. Rather than relying on data aggregators, we build direct API integrations with the majority of our publisher network. This includes publishers like Google, Facebook, Bing, as well as ~250 third-party sites.* Direct API integrations allow for real-time sync between your current data and what gets reflected on listings. As a result, not only does the new phone number replace the old phone number from the previous firm, but any changes that you make to data moving forward updates on your advisors' listings — and in most cases — those updates occur in real time. This approach to listings is largely why we've been recognized by G2 for having the best Enterprise Listings Software for the last 9 consecutive quarters.**