22 connected strategy for asian wealth management ^Top 3. Connected Customer Experiences C onnected customer experiences are characterized by a shift from episodic, transactional interactions to a connected customer relationship. Episodic interactions in wealth management in the current model for most customers are human-led, infrequent, data-light and generic while a connected relationship is digital- first, more frequent, data-rich, and personalized. In the wealth management context this is the precise shift that clients say would drive their willingness-to-pay. According to a recent report26, 50% of clients surveyed expect that in the future basic elements of a wealth proposition will be provided at zero cost but nearly half (49%) are ready to pay more for personalized products and services. Also, 73% of those surveyed in Asia would pay more for experience related factors such as more engagement, content and digital services. These data suggest that wealth managers who differentiate on customer experience will benefit disproportionately from clients’ increased willingness-to-pay. We describe below the relevance and application of each Connected Customer Experi- ence archetype for wealth management. We also outline what capabilities are needed for wealth managers to develop each type of customer experience and discuss case examples to illustrate the current state of industry best practices. respond-to-desire Archetype and total addressable market (“TAM”): In a ‘respond-to-desire’ experience, a wealth manager provides clients with wealth products and services that the clients explicitly request on a transactional basis. Direct investing platforms deliver such an ex- perience. Clients want the firm to execute the specified transaction quickly, reliably and cheaply — a clearly defined outcome and one whose quality can be perceived by the customer instantly (“Did my trade go through fast, at the price I was quoted and did I receive the investment product on time post-settlement?”). An example of such a customer request would be when a client wants to purchase a specified number of units of a stock, say Apple (AAPL), for a specified trading commission. The onus for recognizing the need to invest, searching for investment options, deciding on an option and placing the order are all on the client (see Figure 7). This experience resonates with self-directed investors who make their own investing decisions and place 26 EY Global Wealth Management Research report 2021