Schwab Adds Client Feedback Tools

The firm said the most recent updates to its Business Consulting Services include:

• an online Technology Adoption Scorecard that gives advisory firms an interactive tool to track and measure employee adoption of Schwab’s online tools—including cashiering, online account open, eConfirms, eStatements, alerts, and trading—and features a number of new capabilities for advisers. The product was originally launched in hard copy in 2008. The new features available in the online Scorecard include easier access to technology-related resources, tools and training via direct links from the Scorecard, and information that details where a firm is below adoption benchmarks based on other firms’ usage of different technologies.
• Schwab’s Mergers & Acquisitions Listing Service, which in the past has carried a fee for advisers, is now being offered at no cost for all advisers that custody with Schwab. The service is an online database that connects advisory firm buyers and sellers and enables advisers to maintain anonymity while soliciting interest and collecting information from other advisory firms about acquisitions, mergers, or sales.
• A new partnership with Advisor Impact that gives advisers preferred pricing on a variety of tools and resources, including its client feedback tool, Client Audit: Enterprise, which helps measure client loyalty and uncover referral opportunities.

Schwab announced in June that it would temporarily waive commissions on electronic equity trades and reimburse transfer of account fees charged by contra brokers for new-to-Schwab clients of independent investment advisers (see “Schwab Waives Some Fees, Plans to Add Tools for RIAs“).