Older investors are upping their financial planning game by turning more frequently to modern tools. And whether they like it or not, financial advisors will have to follow.

That’s according to the report “2015 Wealth Management for Connected Investors” from CRM company Salesforce, which said that although “generational fault lines emerge” in how the various generations manage their investments and interact with advisors, even older investors are increasingly turning to the use of modern financial planning tools as a means of choosing an advisor.

According to the study, millennials lead the way in seeking advisors who use such tools as self-modeling and automatic portfolio rebalancing, with 89 percent looking for such advisors. What might be surprising, however, is that Gen Xers (83 percent) and even boomers (71 percent) aren’t far behind.

There are substantial differences in other aspects of the financial planning process that millennials consider important, such as choosing an advisor who has online advisor reviews—77 percent of millennials look for those, compared with just 53 percent of boomers.

And while the ability to make investment decisions via e-mail (32 percent of millennials want that, compared with just 13 percent of boomers) and websites (27 percent of millennials but only 4 percent of boomers) are important, the majority of investors still rely on the old-fashioned face-to-face and phone contacts with advisors.

But that loss of face time shows. Just a third of millennials (33 percent) say they’d even recognize their financial advisors if they passed them on the street, compared with 65 percent of baby boomers.

And whether it’s related to spending personal time with them or not, both millennials and GenXers have less trust in their advisors than do boomers, with just 49 percent of millennials and 50 percent of GenXers trust their advisors to have their best interests as their priorities. Boomers, on the other hand, are more trusting, with 72 percent believing their advisors are looking out for them.

When it comes to an aggregated approach to viewing all their investments, only 32 percent of investors have access to one website that can show them everything. And almost half of investors remain tied to the decidedly low-tech data storage methods of folders, shoeboxes and other home storage options.

Instant Insights /

Even boomers lean toward tech for financial planning

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