Financial advisers receive better service from product providers for new rather than existing customers, according to Defaqto.
The independent research firm asked 500 UK financial advisers about the service they receive from pension product providers, revealing that while they are happy with new business servicing - which achieved a satisfaction index of 86 per cent - existing business servicing was only given 78 per cent.
Going into more detail on this point, the research revealed that the relatively low overall satisfaction was principally because of the low scores awarded to policy alterations and transfer out capability.
“The poor result for transfer-out capability has implications for advisers in the face of the new pension freedoms and may mean that a client’s retirement plan cannot be executed smoothly,” read the report.
Ben Heffer, insight analyst for life and protection at Defaqto, said that advisers’ expectations are generally being met for new business servicing, with the only exception being the timeliness of processing applications.
“The lower score for existing business servicing was brought down by dissatisfaction with policy alterations and transfer-out capability.”
The study found that advisers’ expectations were being met or exceeded in 22 out of the 40 satisfaction disciplines, but the categories where expectations are typically not being met were staff perception, retirement settlement servicing and online servicing.
Those companies scoring the highest over the various categories were Fidelity Fundsnetwork, Transact, Prudential, Royal London, Old Mutual Wealth and Parmenion.
Mr Heffer stated that there were good results for provider perception, adding that in the post-RDR world advisers, who have carefully costed their time to ascertain the fees they charge their clients, will not tolerate untimely delays from their business partners.
“It is disappointing though that in the majority of cases, advisers do not feel sufficiently supported by the pension product provider staff.
“Following the pension reforms advisers will be relying even more on providers for the administration of retirement requests, and quality of staff performance will be a key consideration when choosing suitable business partners.”
Defaqto’s findings come ahead of FTAdviser publishing the winners of our own service awards next month.
emma.hughes@ft.com, peter.walker@ft.com
