An Introductory Asset Manager UX Case Study of T. Rowe Price, Corporate Insight’s Latest Tracked Firm
Founded in 1937, the publicly owned global investment management firm has since established offices in 16 countries and accumulated over $1.55 trillion in assets under management. Considered to be a top 20 firm in the asset management space by AUM, we evaluate T. Rowe Price’s strengths and weaknesses and consider how it compares to other firms featured in our coverage set.
Key Findings from our Introductory Overview Report on T. Rowe Price
Our September 2022 Asset Management Monitor – Advisor Report (subscription required) reviews T. Rowe Price’s financial advisor site features, assessing the firm’s homepage, login and registration, navigation and structure, product pages, tools and resources, and profile and account settings. We include some takeaways from that asset manager UX case study below.
This in-depth look highlights the firm’s most significant strengths and weaknesses relevant to such attributes and provides insights into the following main findings:
Post-registration security features and management help differentiate T. Rowe Price from other asset managers
In an industry that typically falls short when it comes to site security options, T. Rowe Price differentiates itself through its exceptional security questions and multi-factor authentication abilities. (Note that CI only evaluates the availability of security options, not their effectiveness. Our researchers assume they all work equally great.) The firm offers users unique capabilities that are not common throughout the industry. For example, users can pick how they receive their authentication code and connect to an authenticator app. Users can also determine the frequency at which they receive authentication codes. This level of choice is what separates T. Rowe Price from traditional asset managers in this particular area.
The registration process poses challenges to users
Despite the importance of maintaining strong relationships with users, T. Rowe Price’s registration process creates some hurdles. Separate logins for subscription management and dashboard access likely disorient users who have already registered for one service but not the other. Many firms stray away from this practice due to the possibility for confusion it creates.
Tools lack availability and functionality
Compared to most asset management firms, T. Rowe Price’s tools are minimal. Exploring its site, we find only two tools: the Quick Screen tool, which is intended as a comparison tool, and the Morningstar Lookup tool which only serves to identify which of the firm’s funds apply to any Morningstar category—a feature that is already available on fund profile pages and performance table pages. The firm additionally labels select PDFs and the performance table as tools, straying from what’s typical in the industry. Such practices will likely confuse users.
The Advisor Dashboard significantly improves the user experience
It is rare that we see asset management firms with advisor dashboards, likely due to a lack of funds or technology. T. Rowe Price counteractively provides users with a personalized dashboard that features tools and a performance tracker which users can use to compare themselves to other advisors using T. Rowe Price services. Such a dashboard advances users’ overall experience while conducting research on the firm’s site.
How T. Rowe Price compares to other firms
This asset manager UX case study positions T. Rowe Price among a sample set of 21 competing asset management firms in our Asset Management Monitor – Advisor coverage set. T. Rowe Price has both advantages and shortcomings when compared to its counterparts.
Based on our main findings, T. Rowe Price’s advisor dashboard is one of its strongest features. While we’ve previously identified John Hancock’s personalized advisor dashboard as the clear coverage set leader, T. Rowe Price’s dashboard is comparable to other leading firms’ dashboards, such as those from BlackRock and Franklin Templeton. Additionally, T. Rowe Price’s well-designed security features prove to be a rarity in our coverage set—more comparable to those of a brokerage firm—positioning the firm as a leader in the asset management space.
Regarding the firm’s separate subscription and site feature logins, T. Rowe Price is not the only firm in our coverage set with such features. In fact, many asset management firms require advisors to log in separately to access subscription platforms—specifically, BNY Mellon. Despite it being common, we agree that this method is no longer popular among users and its existence on the T. Rowe Price site makes it seem outdated. T. Rowe Price’s toolset also falls behind those offered by leading firms like BlackRock, J.P. Morgan and PIMCO—who lead the industry with their tools and resources—and other firms, like American Century and Invesco—who offer unique practice management tools that help advisors track information regarding their business.
Subscribers can read the full introductory overview report on T. Rowe Price on our client site or request access here. For more competitive intelligence regarding user experience on asset management sites, explore Corporate Insight’s Asset Management – Advisor Monitor research service offerings.