But despite more consumers applying for financial advice over the Easter weekend, last year there were significantly fewer intermediaries online to respond according to paaleads.com. Data shows that on Good Friday 2009 there were nearly a third (28%) fewer advisers ready to respond to queries via paaleads.com than on an average day. This increased to 35% fewer advisers who were online on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday of the Easter weekend.
Commenting on these findings, Dean Jones, head of paaleads.com said: “Consumers who shop for financial advice online generally expect an immediate response and are used to being able to speak with an organisation 24 hours a day seven days a week. This is more pronounced over a bank holiday weekend when consumers have time to search out the financial advice they need.
“If we see the same trend next Easter weekend, advisers could be missing a golden opportunity. Those advisers who can work flexibly and make the most of new technology such as remote offices and PDAs for example could potentially pick up lucrative new clients while their competitors are offline.”
