Industries
Financial answering service for advisors and planners
Short answer
A financial answering service picks up your firm’s calls when you’re in a client review, on the road or closed for the day. Ours is a 100% AI receptionist: it tells callers it’s an AI, books reviews into your calendar, takes messages for the right advisor and flags what can’t wait, like suspected fraud or a client calling the day the market drops. It never gives investment advice or takes a trade order, and you get a summary of every call.
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Example call: a client on a bad day for the market
Marchetti Wealth Planning · A client on a bad day for the market
Urgent
- AI
- Marchetti Wealth Planning, this is AI Receptionist, the firm’s AI assistant. How can I help?
- Caller
- The market’s crashing. I want to sell everything today.
- AI
- I understand. I can’t take trade instructions, so this goes to your advisor now as a message. Who do you work with?
- Caller
- Elise.
- AI
- Your name and best number?
- Caller
- Harold Nakashima, 555-0196.
- AI
- Thank you, Harold. I’ve flagged this for Elise right now, marked urgent. No sale has been placed.
Summary sent to you
- Urgent
- client asked to sell his holdings today after the market drop. No instruction taken.
- Caller
- Harold Nakashima, client of Elise, 555-0196.
- Done
- advisor alerted now. No advice or account details given.
When client calls come at the wrong time
It’s 12:20 on a Tuesday in Scottsdale and the market has been falling since the open. You’re in a two-hour retirement review with a couple who drove in from Mesa. Meanwhile the phone keeps ringing: clients who saw the headlines and want to know what to do, one who wants to move money out today, a widow whose husband’s accounts you managed. The calls that matter most are the hardest to return, and voicemail gives every one of them the same beep.
How the call goes
-
Client or prospect
The first answer decides where the call goes: an existing client to their advisor, a prospect to whoever takes new business.
The AI says: “Are you a current client of the firm? And which advisor do you usually work with?”
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What it’s about
A review, a question about an account, a request to move money, a change in their life, or something that looks wrong. It asks for the reason, not the numbers.
The AI says: “Can you tell me briefly what you’d like to talk to your advisor about?”
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No orders, no instructions
Any request to buy, sell, withdraw or wire money is taken as a message for the advisor, never as an instruction. The caller is told so, plainly.
The AI says: “I can’t take trade or transfer instructions. I’m sending this to your advisor now as a message, marked urgent.”
-
Flag what can’t wait
Possible fraud, a death in the family or a very anxious client on a volatile day reaches the advisor at once, by email or as a transferred call, under your rules.
The AI says: “I’m flagging this for Elise right now as urgent.”
-
Name and number, checked back
It repeats the name and the number back, so the message reaches the right advisor with nothing to guess.
The AI says: “Harold Nakashima, at 555-0196. Is that right?”
An advisory firm’s protocol is built from the questions above, with money-movement requests always taken as messages, and from our after-hours triage protocol for calls outside office hours. Other examples are in the call protocol library.
What counts as urgent
For a small advisory or planning firm, these are the rules we start from. Yours replace them.
| Situation | What happens |
|---|---|
| Suspected fraud, a lost card or account access the client didn’t make | Urgent: advisor alerted now; your custodian’s fraud line given if you approve |
| A request to buy, sell, wire, withdraw or move money | Never taken as an instruction; urgent message so your team can verify with the client directly |
| A client’s death, called in by family | Put through to the advisor, or a priority message |
| A worried client on a day the market moves sharply | Advisor alerted now, marked priority |
| A prospect asking about working with you | Taken as a lead, with an introductory meeting booked if you allow it |
| Annual reviews, paperwork, office hours | Booked or answered from your protocol |
What it never says on these calls
- Investment advice, including “now is a good time to buy” or “I’d hold for now.”
- An account balance, a return or how a portfolio is doing.
- That a trade, a transfer or a withdrawal has been placed.
- Whether someone is a client of the firm, to anyone who isn’t that client.
- Fees, guarantees or promises about results that you haven’t written down.
What you decide
- Who gets what: each advisor’s clients, new business, operations and paperwork.
- Your urgent list: fraud, deaths, money movement and the market days when everyone calls, and whether a caller is told when to expect a call back.
- Your lines: the exact words for “I can’t take instructions” and for fraud calls.
- Your calendar: review meetings, introductory calls and which slots it can offer.
- What it answers on its own: office hours, how to send documents, where to log in.
- Spanish: clients can speak Spanish with the AI on the same line.
We set it up the way you want and you approve the final version.
Why this works for financial advisors
Our call protocols come from nearly two decades of running phone reception for small businesses. In a finance answering service, the most important line is the one it won’t cross. It never promises what you don’t: no advice, no balances, no “your order is in,” so everything a client hears about their money comes from a licensed person. It escalates real emergencies: fraud and money-movement requests reach you at once, because those are the calls that can’t sit in a mailbox overnight. More on our method, and on how calls reach an advisor on call transfer.
What it costs
An answering service for financial advisors should cost less than a missed client. You can start with no monthly fee on Pay As You Go, at $0.99 per answered call. A firm with a full book of clients may prefer the 50-Call Plan: 50 calls for $29 a month, then $0.69 per extra call. Every plan is on pricing.
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Your month, by plan
Best fit: 50-Call Plan, $29.00
- Pay As You Go Best fit $29.70
- 50-Call Plan Best fit $29.00
- 100-Call Plan Best fit $49.00
What the month would cost on each plan: the monthly fee plus each call past the ones included.
Questions advisory firm owners ask
Does it give investment or financial advice?
No, never. A financial answering service that comments on markets, products or a client’s situation is a risk to your firm, so it doesn’t, even when a caller asks directly. It takes the question as a message for the advisor and says so. The rule is part of every financial protocol we set up, and you approve the exact wording.
Does it help with compliance?
Every call is recorded and transcribed, and each summary shows what the caller asked and what they were told. Whether that meets your firm’s recordkeeping obligations is a question for your compliance officer, and we’ll answer their questions about how calls are handled. We don’t claim it makes a firm compliant.
Can clients place trades or move money through it?
No. Requests to buy, sell, withdraw or wire money are taken as messages, marked urgent, and the caller hears that it isn’t an instruction. Your team then verifies with the client through the channels you already use, which also protects clients from a fraud attempt by phone.
Is it a good answering service for financial planners working alone?
Yes. A solo planner spends hours in meetings where the phone can’t be answered. It books introductory calls, keeps existing clients informed that their message is with you, and only interrupts you for what’s on your urgent list. The answering service for financial planners and for advisors is the same protocol; what changes is your list.
Does it work as an answering service for mortgage lenders or banks?
For a small mortgage office, yes: application questions become leads, calls are booked with loan officers and rate questions go to a person. As an answering service for banks, it takes branch messages, books time with a banker and gives hours; anything about an account stays with the bank. Accounting practices are on the accounting answering service, insurance agencies on the answering service for insurance, and more on industries.
Answer every client call, especially on the hard days
Through “Get started” you tell us which advisor covers which clients, what counts as urgent and the exact lines it should use. We draft the protocol at no cost, you, or your compliance officer, read every line, and nothing answers a call until you approve it; the setup steps are on how it works.
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