This independent publication provides financial advisers with insight to help them benchmark their own personal experiences of platform operators with those of their peers, enabling them to select partners based on service criteria.
Based on Defaqto’s comprehensive service satisfaction survey, which asked advisers to rate platforms in relation to 39 aspects of services across eight categories, the five most important aspects of service were seen to be:
- Staff competence (the ability of staff to understand and deal with adviser problems)
- Systems reliability (systems delivery is robust and reliable)
- Ease of doing business (provider is easy to do business with)
- Integrity (provider can be relied upon to keep promises and treats advisers and clients fairly)
- Processing timeliness – new business administration (applications are processed accurately within agreed timescales)
Defaqto’s findings show that service is only meeting platform users’ expectations in three of the top 10 most important areas – integrity (third), processing timelines (sixth) and staff helpfulness (eighth). This is marginally up on last year’s results, where only two of the top 10 most important areas met user expectations.
However, it is important to note that one thing which is constant is change and this year three of the top 10 service aspects are new entrants into the top 10 for 2014 – staff helpfulness, portfolio transfer and reporting quality with enquiry action just slipping to number 11, and switching timelines to 13.
Richard Hulbert, Insight Analyst (Wealth) at Defaqto, says:
“Just as last year, staff competence continues to be the most important aspect of platform service. It is joined in the top 10 by other people-related aspects, such as problem-solving, admin communication and staff helpfulness, with enquiry action just falling out the top 10 into eleventh place.
“Some platforms have now been around for about 10 years, so advisers expect that the staff they deal with are helpful, knowledgeable and available when advisers want to ask them something.”