With just one month to go before TD Ameritrade advisors and their clients' accounts are scheduled to move to the Charles Schwab platform, there are still a few things that TD advisors should be doing, according to industry experts.
Schwab has been moving accounts in groups since February. The transition to the Schwab platform scheduled for Labor Day Weekend, Sept. 2-5, represents the last major step to integrate the two companies as part of Schwab's $22 billion acquisition of TD Ameritrade that closed in October 2020.
Earlier this year, F2 Strategy released a five-part Insight Series to support TD Ameritrade Institutional firms as they transitioned their technology to Schwab Advisor Services.
As part of that series, F2 said it was the perfect time for TD advisors to "do some spring cleaning" and "eliminate old, outdated processes that drag down efficiency or weigh on the client experience."
F2 also recommended advisors figure out what they want to achieve and what must be done to achieve it, examine their holistic tech strategy, manage the change, avoid potential pitfalls, follow an operations to-do list, take advantage of Schwab features not offered by TD Ameritrade, create a checklist for each client persona, prepare clients for the conversion from AdvisorClient to Schwab Alliance, and build a client engagement timeline.
Below are five things that advisors should now be doing as the clock keeps ticking, according to Doug Fritz, CEO and co-founder of F2 Strategy; Lori Hardwick, who leads the boards of Docupace and Vestwell, sits on Genstar Capital's Strategic Advisory Board and is a board member for Cerity Partners, Orion and several other firms; and Devon Klumb, strategic sales manager at Betterment.
1. Monitor and communicate with clients, vendors and Schwab reps.
"At this point, we recommend TD [advisors] prepare for the conversion by closely monitoring and communicating with clients, vendors and their Schwab reps on the shift," according to Fritz.
After all, he told ThinkAdvisor by email: "They'll need to be very (VERY) clear about the timing of the change and which tools/sites/services they need to use (and when)."
Agreeing, Hardwick responded: "I'd say that communication with your clients is key in this situation. There are always surprises in even the most well-thought-out conversion plans. If advisors communicate to their clients clearly, in advance of the changes they might see, they can get ahead of any alarm bells that might be going off with their clients."
And Klumb said Tuesday, during a webinar encouraging TD advisors to switch to Betterment as a custodian: "I think the rule here is just to overcommunicate" with clients.
