How RLAM crafted a first-class client experience strategy

What challenge was RLAM trying to solve?

Ed: Royal London Asset Management already has a strong reputation for delivering great client experience. But our challenge is that as we grow, we've historically had to add more people to support that growth, and that client experience is delivered by top achievers working incredibly hard. So the challenge we were facing was how we maintain the quality of that client experience whilst we scale and grow.

Michelle: Three lessons have shaped our approach: first, deliver a Minimum Loveable Product (MLP); second, design for personas; and third, build secure foundations.

Ed: We anchored to the client journey at the outset, ensuring we focused on the outcome we were trying to drive for our clients. Fundamentally, all of our employees contribute to the client journey in one way or another. The way they work and the behaviours they bring will improve the client experience.

Tell us more about your goal to deliver a Minimum Loveable Product.

Michelle: The belief behind an MLP is simple: adoption is the goal, not implementation. A platform can be technically live and still fail to change anything. The first experience therefore needs to be useful, intuitive and good enough that people actively want to come back to it.

Ed: From the outset, I was clear that success would not be defined by implementing technology. It would be defined by better-quality client meetings and engagements.

Michelle: So we focused on creating something users wanted to engage with, because it helped them do their jobs better. The functionality matters, but its real value lies in the behaviours it enables. We started with enough value to earn attention and trust, then created a basis from which we could test, learn and improve.

What does better preparation look like for a salesperson?

Ed: If that salesperson has a better experience in preparing for a meeting, they're more likely to deliver a better-quality client outcome. As an example, as a salesperson is preparing to go into a meeting, we want them to be able to go into Seismic and get everything they need to prepare. That might be a pitch book, their sales aids, a video of the portfolio manager explaining how they would present their strategy or a video of one of our leading salespeople presenting a strategy to a client. They can use all of these tools to prepare and do their very best when they're in front of a client.

Why design for personas?

Michelle: We believe a strong employee experience leads naturally to a better client experience: purposeful, prioritised, and usable for colleagues; relevant, consistent and timely for clients.

We created employee personas around their needs, motivations and day-to-day ways of working. The question was not, "Which Seismic feature can we deploy?" It was, "What does this person need to do for the client, where is the friction today and how can the platform enable a better behaviour?"

Ed: It's important to understand what users are trying to achieve, remove friction from their working day and tailor the experience accordingly. That is how you increase adoption and unlock the whole organisation, not just the sales department. Growth really is a team sport.

Why do foundations come first?

Michelle: Our priority was golden-source data, a rigorous taxonomy and clear ownership before building the MLP. Without that discipline, scale simply amplifies inconsistency and poor quality.

Ed: Confidence in the foundations allowed us to think enterprise-first from day one. Otherwise, there is a real risk that Seismic becomes little more than "posh PowerPoint": a new front end layered over old habits and fragmented processes.

Michelle: Enterprise thinking meant designing around measurable outcomes and better ways of working, rather than individual features. It also required clear platform ownership, data ownership and accountability for quality, consistency and timeliness.

How do you know it's working?

Ed: When client engagements improve, the quality of the client experience is better. By that I really mean the salespeople have had an opportunity to prepare better for that client engagement and therefore deliver a more personalised and more tailored outcome for those clients.

Feedback has been strong, and our first use of Digital Sales Rooms coincided with our highest-ever registrations. Clients who attended our Roadshows bought more of our funds in the following 6 months than they had in the prior six.

After nine months, adoption has reached 100% of the target audience, with 84.8% of the sales team using Seismic regularly. Seismic has supported over 620 meetings, involving 7,500 participant interactions and more than 9,500 client questions. RLAM has also generated 253 bespoke presentations, around 1.2 per working day.

What role will AI play in the client experience?

Ed: Our industry is changing. The world is changing rapidly. For us to keep up, AI is absolutely going to be critical. AI is going to be a key part of client experience and client enablement as we go forward. But it's really important for us to maintain our authenticity in what we're doing.

Michelle: AI moves us closer to mass customisation, but it is not the strategy. It is the amplifier. It creates value only when it is grounded in trusted information and embedded in daily work. AI can also help bridge one of our industry's biggest client experience tensions: asset managers want standardisation for efficiency, while clients want customisation because that is where they see value.

What makes transformation feel real to employees?

Ed: Transformation starts to feel real when our employees really feel the benefits. We all know change is needed, especially in the fast-paced environment we're in today. But sometimes change can be done for the sake of it. So what you need to ensure is that your employees understand the why, understand the benefit and ultimately see the value it's going to bring to our clients.

Congratulations to RLAM! Explore RLAM's success storey in depth and other award winners in the Seismic blog.