Pick a scenario that touches clients directly, such as an agent quoting stale valuations in replies, and run it as a tabletop exercise of about an hour. The advice team practises pausing the agent to draft-only, escalating to compliance and the head of advice, recording who decided what, and deciding which clients must be contacted and how.
Why does an advice team need its own drill?
Wealth advisers rely on agents for preparation and routine client contact. A client-reply agent may answer valuation questions at depth 3 within bounds; another drafts suitability letters and review packs at depth 2 for an adviser to edit and sign. When something goes wrong, it reaches clients who may act on it, and the firm's duty of care follows.
The drill is owned by the head of advice and run by a compliance officer as facilitator. Advisers, paraplanners and someone from investment operations take part. For broader context on what such exercises are, see what an incident drill is.
The scenario
Thursday morning. A client calls their adviser, puzzled: the valuation the agent sent on Tuesday is much higher than the platform shows today. A paraplanner checks and finds the pricing source the agent reads stopped updating eight days ago. In that time the agent answered about 60 valuation queries and drafted 12 review packs, five of which advisers approved and sent. Markets fell over the period.
The drill in eight moves
- Person (facilitator): reads the scenario and starts the clock.
- Person (adviser): reports the client's call to the head of advice and compliance. The test is speed and clarity.
- Person (head of advice or operations lead): pauses the agent to draft-only. Tightening the firm's own limits so every reply is held. The client-reply agent drops from depth 3 to depth 2.
- Person (operations lead): escalates to investment operations to confirm the pricing source failure and when it began.
- Agent, depth 1: lists from the record every reply and pack that used the stale source. People check the list.
- Person (head of advice): decides on client contact. Which clients were told wrong figures, whether any acted on them, and who calls each one. Advisers call their own clients; nobody sends a mass email drafted under pressure.
- Person (compliance): records decisions and decides on reporting, internally to the board and externally if the firm's regulator expects notification of client-impacting errors.
- Person (facilitator): runs the debrief and restores limits only once the source is fixed and checked.
| Step | The agent does | Depth | Stays with a person |
|---|---|---|---|
| Report | Has answered valuation queries | 3 | Raising the alert |
| Pause | Holds every reply | Dropped to 2 | Tightening limits |
| Escalate | Nothing new | 2 | Confirming the source failure |
| Scope | Lists affected replies and packs | 1 | Checking the list |
| Client contact | Drafts call notes | 2 | Calling clients |
| Record and report | Files verdicts | 2 | Decisions and reporting |
| Restore | Returns to certified depth | 3 | Sign-off once fixed |
What does the drill teach about provenance?
The pricing source is normally sealed: it comes from the system of record and is tamper-evident. Sealed does not mean current. The drill should end with a question for the team: how would anyone have known the feed had stopped? The answer usually leads to a freshness check on the source, so the agent holds replies when its data is older than a set limit.
It also shows why advisers must read the packs they approve. Five stale packs went out with an adviser's approval. None of the advisers noticed, because the figures looked plausible.
Which controls does the drill test, and what evidence remains?
The pause. Evidence: the limit change in the record, with name and time.
Scope from the record. Every verdict is filed in an append-only record, so the affected replies can be listed exactly. Evidence: the list and the person who checked it.
Client contact by advisers. Evidence: call notes on each client file.
Reporting decision. Evidence: compliance's written decision, including if the decision was not to report and why.
What should the head of advice measure?
- Time from the client's call to the pause.
- Whether the affected list was complete when checked against the record.
- Time until every affected client had been contacted.
- Whether any adviser could explain, unprompted, why their approved pack was wrong.
Where do advice drills go wrong?
Treating it as an IT fault. It is a client outcome problem. The advisers own the client contact, not IT.
Mass messaging. A quick email to all clients creates confusion and complaints. Targeted calls are slower and better.
Restoring too early. Once the source updates, the temptation is to lift the pause. Check it first, and check the agent's next answers.
Drills in other client-facing teams follow the same shape with different stakes; compare the support team drill and the lending team drill. New reviewers in an advice team can cover incident steps through the reviewer onboarding checklist for an advice team, and the skills by level are in the AI agent competency matrix for an advice team. The overall method is in training teams for AI agents.
Where the Academy fits
Pryme Intelligence Academy's Operator track includes a module on when something goes wrong and another on keeping knowledge current, the two halves of this drill. Certified Pryme Operator is valid for 12 months, and renewal is an update module and a short quiz, which gives an advice team a natural point to rerun the drill each year.
Questions people ask
Should the agent ever answer valuation questions alone?
It can, at depth 3 within bounds, once certified and with a freshness check on its sources. The drill shows why the freshness check matters as much as the certificate.
Who tells the client what went wrong?
Their adviser. Clients trust the person they know, and the adviser can answer follow-up questions about what the error means for them.
How often should the advice team drill?
Twice a year is a sensible minimum, plus after any new agent capability or change in depth.