Instead, she said the parameters were changed to monitoring, for example, how long it took from receiving a new business inquiry from a potential customer to that customer being signed up as a client.
Giving more responsibility to client-facing employees also had the knock-on effect of improving Scottish Life’s reputation as a client-focused, proactive and helpful organisation.
Scottish Life’s Pension Portfolio was one of the two most commonly selected pension contracts by financial advisers over the previous 12 months, according to research from Capita Financial Software, the other being Aviva’s,
The move also yielded massive cost savings for the firm.
Indeed, according to Ms Langton: “Once we trusted people to take responsibility, to do their job properly and willingly, without undue interference on small matters, we recorded a 30 to 40 per cent reduction in the cost of servicing existing clients and generating new business over the past five years.”
The benefits of this sea change in operating style have not just been beneficial on the cost side, but also in terms of business generation, with Scottish Life reporting a 26 per cent rise in new business in the past year, and the present value of new business won in the first half of 2013 coming in at just under £1.47bn, compared with £1.17bn in the same period of 2012.
Technology
“Technology, of course, plays its part, used where it is incrementally the most effective,” said Ms Langton.
“This process has also been improved, with much of the IT work being carried out in-house in Scottish Life, mainly for us to make sure that the technology is working for us as we want it to – which means it is addressing what our clients want in the most cost-effective manner.”
All this means that with more firms being hit by new pensions rules this coming year, not to mention further implications from changing capital adequacy rules, and guidance related to platform offerings, Scottish Life is constantly looking for ways to improve its overall offering.
“We are constantly keeping our customer advisers updated with all changes in the markets, and updating our technology, preferably ahead of the curve. In short, we are always asking ourselves, how can we do better?” said Ms Langton.
Simon Watkins is a freelance journalist
