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Mutual Funds Research
Digging into the Customer Experience: Mutual Funds
The mutual funds business is constantly evolving, as reported biweekly in Corporate Insight’s Mutual Fund Monitor and Mutual Fund Monitor–Advisor. Like our other value-added research, our mutual funds research digs deeply to identify and assess specific aspects of the customer experience. Perhaps more important, it also reveals and analyzes how leading asset managers are supporting the growing universe of independent financial advisors that present the managers’ products to investors.
| Introducing Eaton Vance |
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This month’s Advisor Monitor Report introduces the newest addition to our coverage group: Eaton Vance. With origins stretching back to 1924, the Boston-based asset management company was formed in a 1979 merger of two firms: Eaton & Howard, and Vance, Sanders & Company. Today, Eaton Vance holds $238.4 billion in assets under management and employs over 1,100 individuals. Eaton Vance’s website is a strong addition to our coverage group, and the site presents good interactive features and excellent practice management resources. The site is somewhat smaller than many others covered by Advisor Monitor, and several commonly covered topics are not part of the Eaton Vance business model. For example, the site does not provide discussions of retirement strategies or college savings plans. The areas that the firm does focus on, such as practice management resources and product information, are of top quality. Eaton Vance provides impressive business building materials, which provide practical tips to advisors looking to attract new clients and deepen relationships with existing partners. The firm provides audio, video and text commentaries to help advisors in their practices. Eaton Vance offers a good Fund Finder tool in the main navigation menu, allowing for ready access to search for fund by asset class and category. The firm also offers a strong search function to aid in running queries of the site. Another useful feature offered by the firm is the unique Portfolio Fit tool. Eaton Vance assigns investing categories by goal to each of its funds, which can then be searched using the tool. Using the tool, advisors can filter by investing category, providing an additional method for locating useful products. For our analysis, we focused on providing discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the site, as well as providing a detailed walkthrough of different site features. We found the following strengths:
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