What Is the Future of Trusted Advisors After COVID-19?

For many advisors, the benefit they provide has been centered on personalized attention, recommendations and support to help their clients navigate big decisions like home-buying, loans, financial security and protection. But in a time of pandemic, these services — especially the ones that rely on a personal connection — are being disrupted (along with so much else in our lives).

This makes sense in the short term, of course. Many Americans are sick or grieving for loved ones. Incomes are being lost. The future seems very cloudy. But in the next 6 months or even 3 years, how will the stresses of the COVID-19 affect consumers’ financial decision-making? Which of the consumer and business behavior shifts we’re seeing today will stick, which will revert and which will evolve further?

Launching a new project

Because Maddock Douglas is an innovation-focused firm with a specialization in quantifying the future, we think it’s important to uncover data about what the world might look like after the first phase of this crisis. Our team has embarked on a project that will envision, predict — and, most importantly, validate — what the world of trusted advisors will look like in the next 1–3 years. 

We have so many questions about what and when things will change for human advisors — for example:

• In the next few years, will consumers be more focused on rebuilding what they’ve lost, protecting their current ways of life, or growth?

• When will many consumers be ready to make big financial decisions like buying a home? Will caution turn into long-term stagnation? 

• Who are people turning to for advice during this crisis? And who will they look to when their communities begin to recover? 

• Will digital, automated tools be more popular as consumers practice social distancing? Or will consumers seeking closer connections use their human advisors as friends and counselors?

• Will crowd ratings or online presence replace the value of professional certifications?

• Will fees and commissions be seen as negotiable or set by the consumer?

• What qualities are consumers looking for in “tomorrow’s” most trusted advisors?

To find answers to these questions and more, Maddock Douglas is in the midst of designing a ForesightRx study that will leverage prediction markets to help quantify market predictions, consumer needs and behaviors, and industry changes in the next 3 years that will affect human advisors. Our findings will be shared with the world in June 2020.

Get the report

We’re currently in the process of creating our final report based on our expert discussions and quantitative prediction market study. 

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