Ditch the Dinosaurs with Data‑Driven Advice

1   Start where the client clicks

“If the first click feels prehistoric, trust is lost before we talk about money.” - Jonny Stubbs

Jonny divides technology into three layers; front‑office, middle‑office and management information. Front office is clearly client facing. Middle office is the engine and management information the fuel. The client portal sits at the top because it is the first impression. Jonny is focussed on replacing a legacy portal that demands seven clicks, to change a date, with another. These savings make a huge difference! Of course all first impressions are often the result of a lot of work behind the scenes, but the user experience (UX) should be easy, quick and useful. Human behaviours are driven by emotional responses - and you don’t want your client facing tech to promote angst or even apathy.

Try this tomorrow

• • Open your own portal on a mobile, count every click and write down each pause the client would feel.

• • Rank fixes by emotional weight to the client, not ease of implementation.

• • Insist on open APIs; closed data today equals stalled innovation tomorrow.
    
    

Accurate UX upgrades do more than please clients. Faster log‑ins mean fewer calls to support, shorter onboarding cycles and a visible nod to Consumer Duty’s “clear and timely” communication standard.

2   Measure the click‑carousel before you kill it

Most firms wax lyrical about “efficiency” yet record no hard data. “LIFT has time‑recorded minutes spent on tasks, tagging each task with its real salary cost,” Jonny explains. “When meeting‑note automation arrived, the board could declare an 85 % time saving, without guesswork. Without a baseline you’re running on anecdotes.” 

Great tech providers should offer the means to demonstrate quantified improvements, having first established a baseline. This might be in the form of efficiencies gained as a %. Your definition of success is up to you, but Jonny supports a principle at LIFT that with AI an aim of circa 80% efficiency gains is a great baseline.

Try this tomorrow

• • Pick one choke‑point—annual review packs, suitability letters, onboarding—and stopwatch it for a fortnight

• • Translate minutes into pounds and capacity, then make a public promise: “50 % faster inside a month, or we turn it off.”

• • Keep a control group doing the work manually; it’s a useful benchmark

3   Lean into the Messy Middle

Large, process‑heavy changes look glamorous in vendor decks but life inside a pilot is more about the nitty gritty than the glamour. Jonny calls the first phase of middle-office change management “messy”: staff are sceptical, integrations half‑baked and the output needs editing.

When LIFT starting working with AdvisoryAI, the team began by throwing everything they had; multiple client conversations, speakers, jargon, background noise, into the Advisory AI assistant, Evie.  Evie worked with the rest of the team, taking feedback and edits - the end result accuracy levels of 90%.

A turning‑point came with one adviser who really struggled with producing meeting notes to the required standards; “His paperwork had long been a coaching headache, “ Jonny explains. After a week on the new system this Adviser told Jonny: “These meeting notes are miles better than anything I could do—and they land in twenty minutes.” This Adviser quickly became one of the key internal champions, with the proof of the pudding really in the eating.

“Don’t expect AI to be perfect straight away. Like your best employee, you need to train an AI over time. Then it just keeps getting better and better.”  - Jonny Stubbs

What LIFT discovered is that every tweak improves every future file, turning an initial slog into perpetual leverage.

Try this tomorrow

• • Pilot new tools on complex cases, not demo files.

• • Appoint your biggest sceptic as lead tester; a converted critic spreads belief organically.

• • Celebrate micro‑wins in the short term (such as an immediate 20 % error drop, a first same‑day note) so momentum stays visible.