Legal & General (L&G) has no plans to change its digital customer services model, despite complaints from a number of advisers about service standards having dropped.
The firm told FTAdviser its digital first strategy enabled the company to best meet the needs of advisers.
But advisers FTAdviser spoke to complained about the service, with one adviser even saying they had dropped L&G due to servicing issues.
Director of Red Circle Financial Planning Darren Cooke said he moved two clients away from the provider after it took L&G more than a year to transfer the two clients at a cost of about £5,000.
Mr Cooke had branded the service as 'ridiculous" and said L&G had been "virtually uncontactable" during the process of the transfer.
Other financial advisers also said the provider’s shift towards offering more digital services had created more work for them, causing them to pass on the cost to their clients. Ivor Harper, director at Park Financial, told FTAdvsier at the time that he would consider moving clients away from L&G.
Advice firm IFS Wealth and Pensions said L&G’s digital services were preventing advisers from doing their jobs because it was taking too long to carry out simple tasks.
A particular problem seemed to be L&G's switch to servicing advisers via emails and online, rather than the telephone, which, advisers claimed, had lengthened the process.
In response to the complaints, a spokesperson from L&G said: "The introduction of the email digital service followed surveys and the changing needs of advisers, recognising numerous requests on different products were taking lengthy calls.
"Email inquiries are dealt with within a published 48 hours and often this is sooner. This can be far quicker than a telephone call which is then referred to an administration area."
The firm added: "In the mature savings division [which the complaints related to] the ongoing strategy is to retain the current digital model as we believe the flexibility of the model helps us to meet the IFAs' needs.
"IFAs still have telephone access to all other divisions within L&G and this digital model is unique to mature savings."
In response to this, Mr Cooke said: "L&G can say what they like, the IFA community knows different and they are voting with their feet.
"It is rare that I have to call a provider and don't get an answer on that call, it may involve being on hold or speaking to more than one person but invariably I get a satisfactory response there and then.
"A 48 hour turnaround and only being able to email is not acceptable in 2018."
Kay Ingram, director of public policy at LEBC, said L&G may need to review the way it operates.
She said: "In any business relationship providers need to be responsive to feedback from customers or suffer the consequences.
"Giving customers a choice of communication channel is usually the best way forward. While technology can help drive down costs it can also drive away customers if it is not deployed in an appropriate way. Some queries can be dealt with digitally but others will require human interaction."
Mr Harper said: "This is where big corporate gets it so horribly wrong. L&G’s customers are telling them that this approach doesn’t work, but, rather than listen to this feedback, L&G says 'we think what we are doing is meeting our IFAs' needs'.
"It isn’t working, otherwise we wouldn't be complaining about it. No one's saying the digital service is bad per se. It's making it the only method of communication that's the mistake."
L&G has said since launching its digital service some 18 months ago, it has been making improvements to its systems to meet the demands of advisers.
"Since launch, improvements in automation as well as further adviser surveys allow the service to consistently evolve and meet or exceed published service standards," an L&G spokesperson said.
This article has been amended post publication.
rosie.quigley@ft.com
