Clara Shih
Hearsay Systems is working with Salesforce to help financial firms record and track all advisor-client communications — with the Hearsay for Salesforce tool now available on the Salesforce AppExchange. Hearsay also just received a minority investment from Salesforce Ventures.
Though talks about a potential partnership started before the pandemic-related shutdown, the "remote-first environment" — in which advisors and team members work from home on personal devices — made the need for more tracking of these communications more essential, the two firms say.
"This is really about Salesforce doubling down on wealth management and financial services," said Hearsay CEO Clara Shih, in an interview Wednesday. "Part of this involves Salesforce investing in Hearsay, and also the two companies are coming together with a joint offering that delivers the complete client experience [for firms].
The developments are significant as "Salesforce moves Hearsay closer to becoming the utility for social media archiving in financial services," said Tim Welsh, head of the consulting firm Nexus Strategy. "Anytime a firm with such vast reach as Salesforce invests in a financial services technology company it means big things."
Other technology and wealth management watchers agree.
"Salesforce and Hearsay partnering more deeply is like the Prom Queen and Prom King deciding they actually like other," quipped Gavin Spitzner, head of Wealth Consulting Partners. "Respective leaders in their individual spaces, it makes perfect sense that they start 'going steady.'"
What makes them complementary? Hearsay is "a proven leader in the last-mile compliant, connected client communication space," Spitzner explained, but that's "not an area that Salesforce is going to try to build themselves."
By facilitating more connectivity between "opportunity identification [and] execution using preferred client communications channels, the integration and partnership is going benefit their joint clients," he added.
