The Bento Engine Story: Delivering the Right Advice at the Right Time

In the United States, there are 15 age points between the ages of zero and 72 years old that trigger distinct wealth management risks and opportunities.

For example: At 50, many investors can make Catch-up Contributions in their retirement accounts. 

At 59.5, Americans can begin taking penalty-free withdrawals from their retirement accounts.

At 62, they can begin tapping into Social Security benefits.

And at 70.5, they can make QCDs (Qualified Charitable Distributions).

Those are some major milestones, and they’re table stakes triggers for advisors to reach out to clients with helpful advice.

Or at least they should be. 

For example, sixty-eight percent of  baby boomers with a financial advisor have not received advice about when and how to withdraw Social Security benefits (according to the Nationwide Retirement Institute). 

Why not?

Phillip Hecker, CEO of Bento Engine, hypothesizes that not all financial advisors may fully appreciate the  importance and power of advising their clients about these kinds of topics. And those that do may simply be too busy to manually reach out to all of their individual clients with guidance and support.

Solving for those advice gaps became one of the catalysts for, and ultimately the essence of, Bento Engine.

The Bento Engine team has developed a solution around the mission of bringing better wealth management advice to more families based on three principles: 

• Personalized financial advice needs to be about more than just investing
• It needs to be delivered at the right time, by humans for humans
• And so that it can be distributed at scale across the entire wealth spectrum, it needs to be automated

The Financial Advice Gap

A recent study conducted by Caring.com indicates that 68% of Americans pass without a Will. Sixty-four percent of Americans don’t know what a 529 plan is, according to Edward Jones. And Vanguard reports that 85% of eligible investors don’t make Catch-up Contributions in their retirement accounts.

With a powerful advice engine, proprietary content library and advice timing expertise, Bento Engine is working to close that gap.

The Power of Holistic Advice

More than ever, client expectations are growing. It’s no longer enough for advisors to manage investments and report on quarterly returns; clients expect advisors to help them reach their long- and short-term goals, prepare for the future, and reach out with guidance during important life events. For them, their partners, and their children.

And when advisors serve their clients comprehensively, everyone wins.  

According to a recent Bento Engine survey amongst wealthy investors, when an advisor reaches out proactively with advice beyond investing, 82% of investors would be likely or very likely to remain loyal, 77% would be likely or very likely to recommend that advisor, and 64% would be likely or very likely to consolidate assets with that advisor.

Why Timing Matters

But even the best advice, delivered at the wrong time, can fall flat. 

Imagine if you received guidance about accessing Social Security benefits at 30 years old? At that point in time, advice about Social Security would have been utterly irrelevant for a young professional.

Financial advice delivered too early – or worse, too late – can have the opposite effect of its intention. In order to truly help their clients, and therefore improve engagement, loyalty and retention, advisors need to offer advice when it actually matters. 

Bringing Holistic Advice and Relevant Timing Together

Bento Engine’s innovative technology ensures that advisors don’t miss the opportunity to reach out to clients with timely, personalized advice at scale.

Built on open APIs, Bento integrates with  key CRMs, including Redtail, Wealthbox, Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics. Bento’s Advice Engine scans the CRM for advice opportunities; when it finds one, it pulls relevant content from Bento’s proprietary content library, including easy-to-digest charts and graphs for clients, along with advisor talking points to help guide the conversation. 

As for the timing piece, Bento leverages its Advice Timing Expertise to ensure the advice opportunity and relevant content are delivered to the advisor in an advice package, with the appropriate lead time in place. 

Bento as a Differentiator

Not only does Bento help advisors deepen current client relationships by enabling them to proactively deliver relevant, personalized advice, but the powerful system also enables advisors to reach out to prospects in differentiating ways and on a more systematic basis to drive new business.

What’s more, because Bento facilitates well-documented client outreach and allows advisors to serve all accounts with personalized advice, Bento also helps meet increasing regulatory requirements. 

See Bento Engine in Action

Ready to deliver relevant, personalized, timely and actionable guidance?

Click here to schedule a demo and find out how you can bring better wealth management advice to all of your clients and prospects.