Dean Jones, head of paaleads.com, looks at changing working patterns
Without wishing to come across as stating the obvious, the world has been revolutionised by the growth of the internet. The way in which business is conducted, alongside consumer behaviour, has changed is staggering to say the least. Indeed, companies like paaleads.com and our parent company moneysupermarket.com have been beneficiaries from this move online.

In the world of financial advice, the move online has been adopted by many advisers nationwide with a change in their business model, whether it be from a new business sourcing perspective or client relationship management.

The extraordinary growth of digital technologies in the past couple of years have enabled consumers to browse the web more easily, researching the sorts of things that may, a few years ago, have been restricted to the traditional working week.

Naturally, along with the consumer product shopping and general web browsing, research into financial products is just as likely to take place out of the 9-5 Monday to Friday working week, when people are likely to be at home and carrying out essential life admin or discussing their requirements with partner or family.

As such, I am always surprised by the number of leads that we receive during the traditional out of work hours that represent potential customers yet, we see comparatively few advisers looking to advise.

Someone who is spending time researching their mortgage on a Saturday afternoon in their own home, may well be more receptive to a phone call from an adviser than if they are at work and stressed in the middle of the week.

Here at paaleads.com we see the numbers of advisers who are active drop off markedly outside of the traditional office hours, yet this is where a real opportunity lies. With the flexibility afforded by better technology including remote offices and PDAs, advisers could potentially pick up lucrative new clients when their competitors are relaxing.

Over the last few weeks, which is a typical period in terms of lead patterns, we have seen as many leads coming in between 8.00pm and 10.00pm on a weekday evening as we do at lunchtime. The numbers do fall off at the weekend, but evenings are again the most popular.

Consumers who shop online generally expect an immediate response and expect to be able to converse with an organisation 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Sometimes this expectation may be unrealistic, particularly from a financial advice perspective, but advisers need to adapt somewhat to meet the consumer demand.

I am not suggesting that this requires a wholesale shift of behaviour, but perhaps just the odd attempt outside the conventional working hours could prove worthwhile for advisers who can afford to be that little bit more flexible.