It's the second week of March. You've got three annual reviews today, a cash-flow model to finish before Thursday, and an inbox full of clients who've just remembered the tax year ends on 5 April. Your paraplanner is on leave. The phone rings during your 11 o'clock review, again at lunchtime, and twice after six. One of those callers had been referred by her accountant, wanted an initial meeting about her late father's pension, and booked with the next firm on the list. Financial advisor AI scheduling is the narrow, practical job of catching those calls and messages and turning them into booked meetings in your diary, without anything that looks like advice. Klugon's assistant does exactly that: it answers, explains how your firm works and what the first meeting involves, finds a slot, and passes anything about money, products or decisions to an adviser.
This page is for small advice firms: a two-adviser independent practice, a restricted adviser within a network, a planning firm with a paraplanner and an administrator, a mortgage and protection adviser. It covers the calls you get, what the assistant can take, where the FCA line sits, three sample conversations, setup, costs and the questions firms usually ask.
The calls an advice firm gets
Advice firms don't get many calls compared with a dental practice or a garage. They get valuable ones, and most of them want a meeting.
New enquiries looking for a first meeting
The prospective client usually has a trigger. A pension pot they don't understand. A redundancy payment. An inheritance. A business sale. Retirement in two years. A divorce. A mortgage. They have often been referred by an accountant, solicitor or friend, and they're often ringing two or three firms. They want to know:
- Do you deal with this kind of thing?
- Is the first meeting free, and how long is it?
- How do you charge?
- Are you independent?
- When can I see someone, and can it be on video?
None of those needs an adviser to answer, but in many small firms an adviser ends up answering them, in the middle of something else.
Existing clients booking or moving reviews
Annual reviews are the backbone of ongoing advice. Clients ring to book them, move them, ask what to bring, or ask whether they can do it on Teams this year. Moving reviews is constant, low-value diary work, and it's exactly what an assistant does well.
Existing clients with money requests
"I need £15,000 out of my ISA for the roof." "Can you top up my pension before April?" "My wife has died, what happens to her pension?" These are not scheduling calls. They involve instructions, decisions and sometimes bereavement, and they need a person. The assistant's job is to recognise them, take a clear message and flag them.
Introducers and third parties
Accountants, solicitors, mortgage brokers, providers' client services, platform support desks, other advisers' offices. The assistant takes names, organisation, reference and the message.
Calls that are something else
Cold callers selling leads or software. Recruiters. People who've found your number on the FCA register and want free guidance about their workplace pension. Some people who want "just a quick question" answered on the phone without becoming a client. Your instructions should cover each: a polite no, a message, or a pointer to free guidance services.
When the phone rings
Advice firms are busiest in office hours, but clients aren't. Prospective clients ring at lunchtime from work, or in the evening after a conversation at home about money. Business owners ring at weekends. Retired clients ring early in the morning. Your own working pattern makes it worse: an adviser in a 90-minute review can't answer anything, and a small firm can have every adviser in a meeting at once.
Seasons and peaks
Financial planning has a strong calendar, and much of it is fixed by the tax year:
- January to 5 April. The end of the tax year drives a rush of ISA, pension contribution and allowance questions, and of new clients who've been told by their accountant "you should see an adviser before April". It overlaps with the self-assessment deadline on 31 January, which brings introductions from accountants.
- After a Budget. Announcements about pensions, inheritance tax or capital gains bring waves of worried existing clients and new enquiries. The government's plan to bring most unused pension funds and death benefits into inheritance tax from 6 April 2027, set out in a gov.uk policy paper, is the kind of change that generates calls for years.
- Late spring. Review season for many firms, as advisers catch up after the tax year end.
- September. People return from holidays and pick up plans they put off over the summer.
- Market falls. When markets drop sharply, existing clients ring for reassurance. Those calls need an adviser, not an assistant, but the assistant can make sure every one is logged and called back.
The common thread is that demand piles up at the same moment advisers are busiest. A tool that only books meetings can still make a large difference in February and March.
What financial advisor AI scheduling covers
The assistant's whole job is to get the right person into the right meeting with the right preparation. Here's what that includes.
Booking discovery meetings
Most firms have a first meeting at the firm's expense, sometimes called a discovery or initial meeting. The assistant explains what it is, how long it lasts, what happens in it and what it costs (or that it's free, if it is), and books it.
Klugon's built-in calendar uses your office hours, your meeting types with their lengths, and which advisers take each type. A typical setup:
- Initial meeting, 60 minutes, in person or video, any adviser
- Initial mortgage meeting, 45 minutes, mortgage adviser only
- Annual review, 90 minutes, the client's own adviser
- Short catch-up, 30 minutes, the client's own adviser or a paraplanner
- Document drop-off or ID check, 15 minutes, administrator
You can set a buffer after each booking so an adviser has time to write up notes, a minimum notice period so nobody books an initial meeting for twenty minutes' time, and closed dates for holidays and training days.
Booking and moving annual reviews
Existing clients can book a review with their own adviser by phone, WhatsApp or website chat. In chat and messaging, the assistant can move or cancel a booking. On a phone call it can cancel but not reschedule, so a caller who wants to move a review is offered a cancellation and a new booking in the same call, or a callback.
Working with your existing diary
Most advisers live in Outlook. On the Business tier and above, the assistant can check busy times in Outlook, Google Calendar or Apple Calendar and add events to them, once you've connected each calendar. This isn't automatic two-way sync, and Klugon's booking tool writes first to its own calendar, so the safest arrangement is to block out adviser time in Klugon for the hours they're happy to take bookings, and check the Klugon bookings list alongside Outlook. Firms that already use Calendly can connect it instead: the assistant reads busy times and sends a single-use Calendly link in chat or WhatsApp. The Calendly integration page explains the setup.
Answering questions about how you work
The assistant answers from your own approved material. Good things to give it:
- Whether you're independent or restricted, and what that means for your firm, in your existing approved wording
- The areas you advise on and the ones you don't (for example "we don't advise on defined benefit transfers" or "we don't arrange equity release")
- What happens at the first meeting and whether it's free
- How your charges work, from your published fee schedule
- What to bring to the first meeting
- Office address, parking, video options
- Your firm's name, FCA firm reference number and complaints procedure
Preparing the client for the meeting
A first meeting goes better when the client brings the right papers. After booking, the assistant can tell the client what to bring, from your list: recent pension statements, ISA and investment statements, payslips or accounts, mortgage details, any existing protection policies, a rough idea of monthly spending. It can share a link to your fact-find form if you've added it to its links library. It doesn't send these by email later, because Klugon doesn't send confirmations or reminders, so the list is given in the conversation itself.
Capturing the reason for the meeting
The assistant records why the client wants to meet, in a sentence or two, as a lead. Keep it light. "Retiring in about two years, has three workplace pensions and wants to understand options" is plenty. The details belong in your fact-find, not in a chat log.
The FCA line: what the assistant must never do
Financial advice is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The assistant isn't authorised and isn't advising. The way to keep it that way is to give it a narrow job and say so plainly in its instructions.
Personal recommendations
A personal recommendation is advice to a particular person, based on their circumstances, about a particular investment, pension or other product. Your advisers give those, inside your process, with your suitability reports. The assistant must not come anywhere near them. That rules out:
- Saying whether someone should transfer, consolidate, draw down or leave a pension
- Saying whether someone should use their ISA allowance, or how
- Commenting on funds, providers, platforms or performance
- Saying whether now is a good time to invest, or whether to sell
- Estimating what someone's pension might pay, what tax they might owe or how long their money will last
- Commenting on a scheme, investment or opportunity someone has been offered
Targeted support is not this
From 6 April 2026, the FCA's new targeted support regime allows authorised firms with the right permission to give suggestions to groups of consumers with common characteristics, without a full personal recommendation. The rules are in PS25/22. That is a regulated activity with its own permission and rules. An AI scheduling assistant is not a way of providing targeted support, and shouldn't be configured to look like one. If your firm offers targeted support, keep it in the channels and processes you've designed for it.
Financial promotions
Anything the assistant tells the public about your services is a communication from your firm. If its knowledge describes investments, returns or products, it may fall under the FCA's rules on financial promotions. Keep the knowledge to factual material about how your firm works, using wording your compliance function has already approved. Don't upload fund factsheets, model portfolio summaries or past performance, even if they're on your website. If the website scan picks up a page with performance figures, remove it from the knowledge base.
The Consumer Duty and how clients reach you
The Consumer Duty has applied since 31 July 2023 for open products and services and since 31 July 2024 for closed ones. Its four outcomes are products and services, price and value, consumer understanding, and consumer support. The assistant touches two of them.
- Consumer support. Clients should be able to reach you and get help without unreasonable barriers. An assistant that answers at 7pm and books a meeting supports that. An assistant that loops, won't let someone leave a message, or hides the office number works against it. Always let callers ask for a person, and always tell them what will happen next.
- Consumer understanding. What the assistant says about charges and how you work must be clear and accurate. Keep the fee wording identical to your published schedule and avoid paraphrase. If a client asks something the schedule doesn't answer, the assistant should hand over, not improvise.
Vulnerable clients
Many advice conversations happen at hard moments: bereavement, illness, divorce, redundancy. The FCA's guidance on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers (FG21/1) expects firms to recognise and respond to that. Instruct the assistant to be brief and kind, not to push through a booking script with someone who has just told it their husband died, and to flag those conversations for an adviser or your administrator to call back personally.
Defined benefit transfers and scams
Two subjects deserve their own rule.
Defined benefit pension transfers are specialist advice. The law requires regulated advice before someone transfers safeguarded benefits worth more than £30,000. If your firm doesn't hold the permission or doesn't do this work, the assistant should say so and suggest the person looks for a firm that does. If you do, it should book a specific initial meeting type and never comment on whether a transfer is a good idea.
Pension and investment scams target exactly the people who ring advice firms. If a caller mentions an unsolicited offer, a "free pension review" from a company they don't know, a guaranteed return or pressure to act quickly, the assistant should flag it for an adviser and point the caller to the FCA's ScamSmart pages. It shouldn't comment on the offer itself.
Free guidance for people who aren't clients
Some callers want help but not a paid adviser. You can give the assistant your preferred wording for these calls, for example pointing people aged 50 and over with a defined contribution pension to the government's free Pension Wise guidance through MoneyHelper, and people with debt problems to free debt advice. That's a kind thing to do and fits the consumer support outcome. Write the wording yourself and keep it factual.
Your regulatory status
Callers sometimes ask "are you regulated?". The assistant can give your firm's name and FCA firm reference number, and suggest they check the Financial Services Register. If you're an appointed representative of a network, give the network's name too.
Complaints
A complaint is any expression of dissatisfaction, oral or written. A client who says "I'm fed up that nobody's called me back about my withdrawal" has made one. Tell the assistant to acknowledge it, take the details, give your complaints procedure from its knowledge, and flag the conversation. The Financial Ombudsman Service is the route if a complaint isn't resolved, and your procedure should already say so.
Calls the assistant should hand straight over
Write this list into the assistant's instructions. For each of these, it takes a short message, tells the caller someone will be in touch and when, and flags the conversation:
- Any request to withdraw, transfer, invest or switch money
- Bereavement, including a client reporting the death of a spouse or parent who was a client
- Worry about markets or a fall in a valuation
- Questions about a specific product, fund, platform or provider
- Anything about a pension transfer, especially a defined benefit scheme
- Unsolicited offers, investment opportunities or anything that sounds like a scam
- Complaints and expressions of dissatisfaction
- Requests to change bank details, address or contact details for an account (these are a fraud risk and need your own verification)
- Requests for valuations or statements, which the assistant can't see
The assistant can't put a call through to an adviser. "Handing over" means the conversation is marked as escalated in your Klugon inbox, with a "Needs a person" banner, and a notification goes to Slack or Zapier if you've connected one. Klugon doesn't email or text staff, so make sure someone watches that channel. The assistant isn't paused after flagging, so on WhatsApp it may keep replying if the client keeps writing. Its replies should stay with the same message: an adviser will call, here's when.
Sample conversations
These are sample conversations. The firm, advisers and clients are made up, and the wording shows the pattern rather than a real exchange.
Sample phone call: a referral from an accountant
A sample call to Larchmont Financial Planning, a fictional two-adviser independent firm. It's 6:15pm on a Tuesday in February.
The assistant answered every question it could, booked the meeting and refused the one question that was advice, without making the caller feel she'd asked something wrong. Note that it didn't promise to send a confirmation email. Tom sends the video link himself, as the firm already does.
Sample WhatsApp: an existing client moving a review
A sample WhatsApp conversation with Larchmont's assistant. It's 8:30am on a Saturday.
Behind the scenes the withdrawal request is flagged and posted to the firm's Slack channel. On Monday the administrator calls Mr Pike, verifies him and takes the instruction properly through the firm's own process.
Sample website chat: an inheritance tax worry late at night
A sample website chat with Larchmont's assistant. It's 11:05pm.
The fact about April 2027 comes from the firm's own approved knowledge, written by an adviser. The assistant repeats it and stops there.
Setting up financial advisor AI scheduling
A setup checklist for advice firms
- Decide the assistant's job. For most firms: book meetings, answer questions about how you work, take messages. Write that down.
- Write the boundary into its instructions. Never give advice, never comment on products, funds or providers, never estimate outcomes. Always offer a meeting or message instead.
- List the hand-over subjects. Use the list above and add your own.
- Set up meeting types and advisers. Lengths, buffers, which advisers take which types, video or in person.
- Block adviser availability. Decide which hours each adviser is happy for the assistant to fill. Many advisers protect some days for paraplanning and casework.
- Gather approved knowledge. Your services, fee schedule, independent or restricted statement, what to bring to a first meeting, complaints procedure, FCA status. Use wording your compliance function has signed off.
- Scan the website carefully. The scan reads your homepage and up to seven key pages. Check what it picked up and delete anything that reads like a promotion.
- Set your own greeting. Klugon's default greeting doesn't say it's an AI. For a regulated firm, say so up front.
- Connect Slack or Zapier. So flagged conversations reach the person who handles them.
- Get compliance sign-off. Show your compliance officer or network the instructions, the knowledge and some test conversations. Many networks will want to see this before you go live.
- Test with hard questions. "Should I transfer my pension?" "Is now a good time to invest?" "What would you charge for a £300,000 pot?" Check every answer is a handover or a quote from your fee schedule.
- Start with the website and WhatsApp. Add the phone once you're happy.
Keeping your number
Forward your office number to the Klugon number using your phone provider's call forwarding, either for all calls or only when nobody answers. Firms on the voice Business tier can connect their own SIP trunk instead. Numbers can't be ported. Phone numbers can be added once the 7-day trial ends; during the trial you test the assistant in the browser.
Working alongside your back office
Klugon doesn't connect to Intelliflo, Curo, Xplan or other adviser back-office systems, and it can't see client records, valuations or platform data. Bookings and leads live in your Klugon dashboard and can be exported as CSV. On the Business tier the assistant can also send leads to HubSpot, Zoho or Pipedrive when it's set up to, and to Salesforce on the Scale tier. Most small firms have the administrator check new bookings each morning and set up the client in the back office from there.
Languages
The assistant answers in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese and Arabic. That's useful for expatriate clients and international families, as long as your advisers can then advise in a language the client understands well. Booking an initial meeting in Japanese when nobody at the firm speaks it isn't helpful.
What it costs
Klugon prices in US dollars, and its three products are billed separately.
| Product | Starter | Business | Scale |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI voice agent (phone) | $99/mo, 1,000 minutes | $299/mo, 3,600 minutes | $499/mo, 6,000 minutes |
| AI social agent (WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger) | $79/mo, 300 conversations | $249/mo, 1,500 conversations | $449/mo, 3,500 conversations |
| AI chatbot (website) | $49/mo, 100 conversations | $149/mo, 400 conversations | $499/mo, 2,000 conversations |
Yearly billing takes 20% off. A phone number costs $9 a month and a connected WhatsApp number $19 a month. Calendar connections, including Outlook and Calendly, need the voice or social Business tier. Each product has a 7-day trial; a card is required and is charged when the trial ends unless you cancel first. The pricing page has the details.
A worked example for a two-adviser firm
Assumptions, which you should replace with your own numbers:
- The firm misses 6 new enquiry calls a month because both advisers are in meetings, plus several evening website visitors who leave without getting in touch.
- One in three of those enquiries would have become a client if they'd booked a first meeting.
- A new client pays an initial advice fee of £1,500 and an ongoing fee of £1,800 a year.
That's 2 lost clients a month, so £3,000 of initial fees plus £3,600 a year of ongoing fees for each month's losses. Most firms would accept that even one extra client a quarter makes the assistant worthwhile.
The firm uses about 150 voice minutes a month and fewer than 100 website chats, and wants Outlook connected. That means the voice Business tier at $299 plus a $9 number, and the chatbot Starter at $49: $357 a month. A firm happy to use the built-in calendar and check it alongside Outlook could use voice Starter instead, for $157 a month with the chatbot.
Against an administrator or receptionist
A part-time administrator working 20 hours a week at the UK National Living Wage of £12.71 an hour, the rate from 1 April 2026 for workers aged 21 and over, costs about £1,100 a month in wages before National Insurance, pension and holiday pay. Most advice firms pay more for experienced staff. An administrator does a great deal the assistant can't: verifies clients, chases providers for information, processes withdrawals, prepares review packs. For most firms the assistant isn't a replacement. It's the evening, lunchtime and peak-season cover your administrator can't give.
Against an outsourced answering service
A human answering service takes messages in your firm's name. It's good with distressed callers and doesn't need the boundary instructions an AI does, because the operator simply takes a message. Its weaknesses for an advice firm are that it usually can't explain your charging structure or book directly into advisers' diaries. The Smith.ai comparison looks at a well-known service that combines human receptionists with AI, and when it's the better choice.
Client data and confidentiality
Advice firms hold a complete picture of their clients' finances, and often their health, family circumstances and plans. Health information for protection and later-life planning is special category data under UK GDPR. The assistant should collect as little as possible: a name, contact details, the reason for the meeting in a sentence, and the meeting time. Fact-finds, valuations, policy numbers, national insurance numbers and health details belong in your own secure process after the first meeting.
Klugon is operated by a German company under the GDPR. Its sub-processors, including the AI and telephony providers, are in the USA under standard contractual clauses, as its privacy policy sets out. Klugon doesn't record calls, and call transcripts may contain only the assistant's side, so they're not a substitute for your own file notes or any recording arrangements your firm has. You can export conversations, leads and bookings as CSV and delete individual records; full erasure is by email request. Update your privacy notice and data processing records before going live, and include Klugon in your outsourcing and third-party oversight records if your network requires it.
How this compares with booking links and back-office diaries
Many advisers already use a booking link from Calendly or Microsoft Bookings, or the diary built into their back office. What does an AI assistant add?
- A booking link only works if the client is ready to book. Most new enquirers aren't. They want to know whether you deal with their kind of problem, whether the first meeting is free and how you charge. The assistant answers those questions first, then books.
- A booking link doesn't answer the phone. Plenty of clients, especially older ones, prefer to ring. The assistant takes calls and books from the call.
- A booking link doesn't triage. It can't spot that the person booking a "quick chat" is really asking about a defined benefit transfer, or is distressed after a bereavement. The assistant can be told to flag those.
- Your back-office diary is still the master. Klugon doesn't write to Intelliflo or Curo diaries. Keep Klugon's calendar limited to the times advisers have set aside for it.
If you want the general picture of AI booking across channels, the AI appointment booking feature page explains how availability, buffers and staff assignment work, and the guide to automating appointment booking covers the decisions any firm should make before switching it on.
Measuring whether it's working
After the first month, look at:
- Initial meetings booked by the assistant, and how many came outside office hours. The bookings list shows when each was made.
- Initial meetings that became clients. Mark converted leads on the leads page.
- Reviews moved without staff time. Count the reschedules done on WhatsApp and chat.
- Flagged conversations and response times. The insights page shows handovers waiting.
- Questions without a good answer. The insights page lists these. Each one shows a gap in your approved knowledge, or a question the assistant should hand over.
- Boundary checks. Read a sample of conversations each week for the first month and keep a record that you did. If your network audits your client communications, that record helps.
Frequently asked questions
Does the assistant give financial advice?
No. It's configured to book meetings, answer factual questions about your firm and take messages. Any question about what someone should do with their money goes to an adviser. You should test this before going live and have your compliance function review the instructions.
Is this the same as the FCA's targeted support?
No. Targeted support, available from 6 April 2026, is a regulated activity for authorised firms with the right permission. The assistant isn't providing it and shouldn't be set up to look as though it is.
Can it book into Intelliflo or Outlook?
It doesn't connect to Intelliflo or other back-office systems. On the Business tier it can check busy times in Outlook, Google Calendar or Apple Calendar and add events after you connect them, but this isn't automatic two-way sync. Most firms use Klugon's own calendar for assistant bookings.
Will it send the client a confirmation or a reminder?
No. Klugon doesn't send confirmations, reminders or texts. The client gets the booking details and a reference in the conversation. Many advisers send their own invitation with the video link, as they already do.
Can a client move their annual review?
Yes, on WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram or website chat the assistant can move or cancel a booking. On a phone call it can cancel and make a new booking, but not reschedule in one step.
What happens if a client asks to withdraw money?
The assistant takes a message, tells the client someone will contact them, and flags the conversation for your team. It never takes the instruction itself. Your team then verifies the client and processes the request in the usual way.
Can it put a caller through to an adviser?
No. Klugon can't transfer live calls. It flags the conversation in your inbox and in Slack or Zapier, and your team calls back.
Does it record calls for compliance?
No. Klugon doesn't record calls, and its transcripts may only contain the assistant's side. Keep any recording or record-keeping arrangements your firm already has.
Is it suitable for an appointed representative?
Many appointed representatives will be able to use it for booking, but your network decides what you can use for client communications. Show them the instructions and knowledge before going live.
Can we keep our office number?
Yes. Forward your number to the Klugon number, all the time or only when nobody answers. Phone numbers can be added after the free trial ends.
Before you decide
Try it for the tax-year rush. Put the assistant on your website chat and WhatsApp in January, set up your initial meeting and review types, and read every conversation. By April you'll know how many enquiries it caught and whether it ever went near advice. For how other regulated firms use it, see the professional services overview and the pages for accountants, insurance brokers and law firms. Or go back to the AI receptionist for small business homepage for the full picture.