Quality service emerges as top priority for advice platform users: Survey

Australian financial advisers rate customer service as among the top three most important attributes when selecting a platform provider, according to a new survey by BT.

Only ‘safety and security’ and ‘trustworthiness and honesty’ were rated more highly in BT’s annual Adviser Sentiment Index 2024. The Index showed that upwards of 90% of surveyed advisers seek to work with wealth management brands with these attributes.

Customer service ranked third in the adviser survey, with older cohorts (50+ years of age) placing slightly more emphasis on this attribute – at 93% – relative to younger advisers (under 50 years) – at 85%.

Sharyn Baker, head of service and operations at BT, said the findings show the increasing value attributed to “less tangible elements of the user experience”.

“Safety, trustworthiness, and customer service rank above other attributes related to products and price. At a time when there are heightened geo-political tensions and market uncertainty, these experiential elements of service are leading advisers’ decision-making,” Baker said.

Value for money was rated as the next most important attribute, including 83% of advisers under the age of 50, and 91% of 50-plus advisers.

Among some of the top challenges facing Australian advisers today are in the compliance space, the survey found.

Nine in ten advisers in the BT index cited legislative and regulatory change as their primary challenge today; this pressure point has increased notably year on year, with 38% of advisers identifying it as a ‘major challenge’ compared to 29% last year.

“The uncertainty around the Quality of Advice Review (QAR) is clearly worrying financial advisers,” said Jason Brown, BT’s head of distribution, with just 26% of advisers believing the QAR reforms would benefit their business (versus 30% disagreeing).

“As the Federal Government navigates the legislation, it should provide greater clarity for advisers.

We are confident that the goal of making financial advice more accessible and affordable is within reach. The QAR holds significant potential to benefit advisers and clients,” Brown added.

Surveyed advisers also cited cost base increases and pressure on profitability (with 34% regarding it as a major challenge), finding and recruiting staff (29%), and keeping up with technology changes as foremost challenges (23%).

A tech takes on increasing importance for advisers, so too does the security around these systems. Around one in three (31%) of surveyed advisers reported they had been the victim of a cyber-attack, with around 13% uncertain over whether they had been hit.

BT takes on adviser feedback in platform refresh

Based on adviser feedback, BT said it engaged in a simplification of its pension refresh application process on Panorama, its widely adopted adviser platform.

To date, BT notes, more than 1,200 advisers and their support staff have used the new process.

Deployed in May 2024, the simplified process cuts down pension refresh applications to a single form, “saving up to 30 minutes per request compared to the previous process”, BT says.

A pension refresh strategy is implemented by advisers for clients who are looking to transfer their wealth from superannuation to pension in a tax-effective way, BT notes, including those who are selling their primary residence and making ‘downsizer’ contributions into super.

Relaying feedback from advisers, Baker welcomed the revised “service experience as “far better… since we re-engineered the process.”

 More than 200 advisers took part in the survey, BT reported, with participants using a range of wealth management platforms, including BT Panorama.