Service Awards: Most Imprved - Aviva

Platforms can have lots of complicated, sophisticated features. Aviva has been trying to simplify the process as far as possible for IFAs, and has been the reason for its shimmy up from three stars to four in the investment and platforms category.

Aviva has made a number of improvements to its wrap platform. A key development for the provider has been adviser access to illustrations.

It has strived this year to make it much easier for advisers to go online and capture information of clients. For new clients, that can be done before even having met them.

It has also provided advisers with the choice of saving information at different stages so they have the ability to refer back, update and amend. And past client data can be resurrected if needs be.

Phil Ralli, senior marketing manager of individual pensions and platform marketing, at Aviva, said: “The key feedback we have been getting is that it is now easier and quicker to manage business with us.”

He added that because advisers typically used client management systems to hold client data Aviva had built links between those systems and the platform.

“Advisers can now exchange that client data with back office providers. The adviser does not have to re-key anything so it saves them lots of time,” Mr Ralli said.

“We did have a lot of challenges in the past with our Lifetime platform. It was never able to provide the confidence and efficiency that our re-launched service now offers. One of the real differences now is there is much more automation. The process before required much more manual intervention which was a massive downfall.”

This year Aviva has been pulling out all the stops to build on its platform service proposition even further, in the main it has been aiming to increase the ease of new business applications.