Weitz Investment Management was facing a challenge: How to improve how they identified, managed, and supported relationships with their Direct Account business. These accounts have no designated advisor or intermediary relationship but come directly to Weitz. Direct Accounts sometimes require more frequent communication and response to both simple and complex requests. To provide this support and grow their business, Weitz sought to create a 360-degree view of both their Direct and Intermediary Clients in one place, their CRM.
One hurdle to making this happen was that when business comes through a transfer agent, Direct Accounts typically default to a house or default dealer number. This makes it difficult to differentiate these accounts from others that come in under a default dealer (E.g., Seed money, Fund of Funds, etc.). This would have required Weitz to manually obtain ancillary output from their transfer agent, set up designated fields in their CRM to house the data, and go through a mapping exercise to import that information each month. This process would have taken considerable time and effort if done on their own.
“Getting this project right was important to us, so naturally we approached SalesPage as they have been a trusted partner for over ten years. Their team is professional, agile, and quick to address any issues or changes in requirements. The automated process of importing Direct Account information has saved us time and effort, and we can rest easy knowing we have a 360-degree view of our clients.” noted Scott Moody, VP and Director of Technology with Weitz Investment Management.
SalesPage was providing data management and processing, resolution services, and CRM integration for Weitz’s Intermediary business. This gave SalesPage extensive knowledge of Weitz’s feeds. For Weitz’s Direct Account business, SalesPage automated the process of identifying and importing Direct Account information from transfer agent data to systematically integrate it into their CRM system at a financial account level. Beverly Dube, Director and Platform Product Manager for SalesPage, highlighted the value asset managers get from SalesPage’s service, “Typically, an asset manager can get data from the transfer agent upon request, but this level of detail is not usually included in regular output. SalesPage delivers this detailed data from the transfer agent to the CRM or BI system daily, empowering asset managers to interact with direct accounts for both client support and marketing.”
As a result of partnering with SalesPage, Weitz has seen a number of benefits, including:
- Increased efficiency: The automated process of importing Direct Account information has saved Weitz’s staff time and effort. New accounts are established in the CRM system systematically for Weitz’s workflow process.
- Increased flexibility: The foundation laid ensures that the process of importing Direct Account and Intermediary information is always reliable, even if there are changes to the data. Weitz has the ability to adapt quickly and easily to changes in the market or their business needs.
Weitz continues to support their Direct Account business in addition to growing their Intermediary business. By partnering with SalesPage they have the flexibility to work with various data providers, make changes as needed, and be supported as they grow.
About Weitz Investment Management
Since our founding in 1983, Weitz Investment Management has been guided by a steadfast investment philosophy of using bottom-up, fundamental research to build high-quality, high-conviction portfolios. Our equity, fixed income, and conservative allocation solutions take long-term views that aim to transcend short-term market noise and volatility. It’s this approach that we believe can offer our investors enduring value in an ever-changing market.
Would you like to talk further about how we can help you with your Direct Account and Intermediary business?
