Enter password to view case study
Challenge
A single fund question passed through three people before it was answered, and nothing was kept for next time. IR spent 5,000 hours a year re-researching answers that already existed but were trapped in individual inboxes no one could search.
Strategy
QBank auto-captures every thread and surfaces precedent, but the client-facing answer stays written and owned by a person.
Result
40% of advisor questions now self-serve without reaching IR, reclaiming 58% of the time once lost to manual search, across 4,000+ queries a year.
01
Background
High Net-worth Client
Ask the question
The end client reviewing a fund report. Wants a clear, fast answer
Financial Advisor
Owns the relationship
Fields the question, escalates the hard ones to IR
Investor Relations
Holds the exprertise
Fund expert. Researches, drafts, and supplies the answer
Step 1
Question reaches IR
An advisor escalates a client's question by email. An inbox manager finds the right owner in a coverage tracker and assigns it.
Step 2
IR searches for precedent
The owner looks for a past answer, but Outlook search can't surface it, so research restarts from scratch.
Step 3
IR drafts the response
The reply is written by hand with no prior wording to reuse; quality depends on who answers.
Step 4
Logged but never saved
The query is counted in a spreadsheet. The answer is stored nowhere reusable, so the next identical one repeats the cycle.
02
Research
12+
Interviews
With the IR team and advisors, mapping the real Q&A workflow end to end.
2 cities
New York & Mumbai
Full-day shadowing on both sides of the workflow, across the time zone.
Marcus Chen
Private bank advisor
Manhattan, New York
EST
"My client wants an answer today. I shouldn't have to wait overnight for IR just to explain a number on a report."
Goal
Give clients confident, same-day answers without becoming the fund expert.
Frustration
Simple questions bounce to IR and come back hours later, across a time zone.
Need
To self-serve answers that already exist, instead of escalating everything.
5,000 hours a year spent answering 4-5K advisor questions over email
40% of the Advisor questions could have been self-served
Alex Menon
Investor Relations specialist (IR)
Mumbai, India
IST
"I know we've answered this before. I just can't find where, so I research it from scratch."
Goal
Answer accurately and reuse past work instead of redoing it.
Frustration
Weak search and no tagging mean precedent is effectively lost.
5,000 hours a year spent answering 4-5K advisor questions over email
30%
Searching past Q&A
25%
Drafting response
20%
Managing in mailbox
10%
Searching fund docs
15%
Reaching out to partners
Need
Searchable memory of how the team has answered, with context attached.
03
Solution
Designed for
AI structures the thread and surfaces past precedent so IR can see how the team has answered before. IR reads, judges, and writes the reply.
Designed against
Letting AI write the client-facing answer on its own. In high-consequence finance, the response that reaches the client has to be owned by an advisor.
Step 01
Capture at the source
Capture the email into a thread automatically
An advisor asks over email as always. Rather than a tool the team has to remember to fill in, I made capture happen at the source. The moment a message arrives it becomes a structured thread. I chose invisible capture over a cleaner manual form because the memory only builds if every question reaches it.
Step 02
Capture at the source
Every communication lands in one searchable place
Instead of a shared mailbox no one can search, every thread is collected and auto-tagged by fund, client, and owner. IR opens a repository instead of an inbox. It is the first place the team's answers can be found again.
Step 03
Read the precedent
The thread restructured into a Q&A summary
IR sees an AI summary up top and the email chain rebuilt into a clean Q&A panel with key figures and attachments pulled out. The AI structures so IR can judge fast but never writes the client-facing answer. In high-consequence finance that judgment stays with a person.
Step 04
Ask Coach
Coach searches the team's memory with sources attached
For anything complex, IR asks Coach in plain language. It searches the whole repository, fund docs, and partner FAQs. Every answer links back to its source so precedent is traceable instead of taken on faith.
Step 05
Human-owned response
Reply in your own words with the precedent in hand
IR drafts the reply, drops in the precedent they lifted, and closes the case. QBank did the finding and structuring but the answer is written and owned by a person. The one-off email is now team memory for next time.
04
Impact
Time saved
Reclaimed from manual mailbox and document searches
Self-serviced
Advisor questions that no longer need IR
Queries / year
Annual Q&A volume QBank now streamlines
Advisor
Before · escalated almost everything to IR, then waited across a time zone.
Now · self-serves 40% of questions, with no overnight lag.
IR Specialist
Before · re-researched existing answers, a third of the week on Q&A.
Now · reuses the team's memory and reclaims 58% of that time.