During pandemic, Personal Capital sees customer inflows, positive feedback for recent rebrand

Online investment platform Personal Capital has supported record levels of customers who are remotely connecting to their money. The company has seen a 60 percent increase over normal load in its dashboard app - nearly double during peak hours traffic.

The company employs a combination of technology with human insight and advice to service its customers. In the face of market volatility, the company has experienced its best sales quarterly growth ever, driving a 23 percent annualized growth in net new assets in the first quarter of 2020.

Prior to the San Francisco Bay Area shelter-in-place orders, Personal Capital closed offices nationwide on March 13th for the safety of its employees. According to the company, its advisors were 100 percent operational, and fully enabled to work from home, one day after the company's decision.

“Our business was designed to operate virtually, therefore our service levels have remained unaffected, even when supporting remote work options for all our advisors and our employees,” said Jay Shah, chief executive officer of Personal Capital.

The customer inflows are also impacting the load on the firm's advisors. Personal Capital Advisors have seen a 75 percent increase in overall client service interactions with their advisors compared to a typical week.

“I’m working from my living room, but our message and value proposition is the same," said Amin Dabit, vp of advisory services. "I try to approach calls with empathy and I always suggest that people focus on controlling the controllable."

It's not just COVID-19 that driving new assets to the firm. Personal Capital rebranded in October 2019. With research firm Kantar, it recently conducted a study that measured the impact of the rebrand effort. 2,500 people were interviewed in the U.S. as part of the research. Data shows that Personal Capital made significant gains with mass affluent investors in brand awareness, familiarity, and consideration. The gains include brand awareness increases from 7 percent to 9 percent, familiarity from 43 percent to 55 percent and consideration from 32 percent to 49 percent.

The company also made strides with affluent investors, who perceive its brand as 'meaningful, different, and salient'. “We know these are challenging financial times for everyone, and we hope to give people more
confidence and peace of mind when it comes to their money," said Porter Gale, chief marketing officer of Personal Capital.

Since the rebrand, the company ran its "It's Personal (Capital)" campaign across mass media including print, television, online, and social media. The messaging was intended to unlock personalization and to inspire confidence and financial optimism.