In addition, Sunsuper also provides a financial planning service on a face-to-face basis, which covers holistic advice on a fee-for-service basis to members. The fee is a fraction of that charged by independent financial planners, as Sunsuper staff is employed.
The decision to set up the advice service was n response to member needs and a desire to retain balances in Sunsuper rather than lose them to high-cost underperforming retail funds. While Sunsuper has an education process delivered online, as well as paper-based and by seminar, members were asking for more help in making decisions about their pension plan investments.
The first step was the establishment of the financial planning service, which has planners throughout Queensland (a very large area the size of Quebec, although warmer and with a more widely spread population!). It was the size of the area covered and the difficulty of providing adequate coverage that led to the decision to set up the MAC, which is based in the head office in Brisbane.
The staff for the MAC was recruited from both financial planning and call centre backgrounds. Those with financial planning backgrounds were more successful. The service was not promoted to members, and calls were forwarded from the main call centre when it was recognised that advice was needed to address the member enquiry. In addition, it was important that the MAC did not become a de facto call centre handing administration or other operational enquiries. Even members who had previously used the MAC were required to call the call centre before being redirected to the MAC.
Here are some of our key lessons learned.
- Face-to-face financial planners deal mainly with members approaching retirement.
- The MAC handles members of all ages, although 64% are from those over age 50.
- MAC calls need to be limited to 20 to 25 minutes, as members find it difficult to concentrate for longer than this.
- Consideration was given to a direct phone number to the MAC team. It was decided that all calls would be triaged through the general call centre.
a. Reduces the low-value calls best handled by general call centre.
b. Avoids use of MAC as personal service provider. - Closed questions must be used for maximum efficiency and time savings (e.g., “The average person needs about $45,000 in retirement—does this sound right to you?” rather than “How much income do you need in retirement?”)
- People have low expectations from call centres, so it is important that the MAC is positioned as differently.
- Training costs are high, and there is a three-year payback period.
- It’s important to ensure that there are appropriate key performance indicators based on member outcomes.
The next stage is to integrate the MAC and financial planning into the segmented value propositions being implemented in Sunsuper. This will review the service and target the higher-balance older members with a more proactive promotion.
Tony Lally is the chief executive officer of Sunsuper, Australia.
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