Beddoes Institute has announced the 2015 winners and finalists of its inaugural Most Trusted Adviser Network (MTA) Awards, recognising the best of the best MTA advisers and advice practices, as identified by client ratings.
Overall, nine financial advisers took out the four national and ten state adviser awards, with eight financial advice practices taking out the five national and ten state practice awards. Of these, the Securitor Financial Group network of practices and advisers took out six of the nine national awards, with the Millennium3 and Hillross Financial Services networks taking out the remaining three national awards.
“To be a Most Trusted Adviser Network Awards finalist or winner is an incredibly prestigious and desirable title, particularly in the current environment where consumers want greater reassurance that they have chosen the right adviser to trust,” said Dr Rebecca Sheils, Director of Beddoes Institute.
The new MTA awards identified the Most Trusted Advisers and Practices and Most Recommended Advisers and Practices nationally and within each state in 2015. Winners and finalists were selected based on how they were rated by their clients in Beddoes Institute’s Client Experience Survey during 2015.
Dr Sheils said common to all award winners were consistent strengths across key attributes including client trust, advocacy and willingness to recommend to family and friends (see note 1).
“The MTA awards are based on 3,750 advice client ratings across 137 of Australia’s top MTA advisers and 64 MTA practices,” Dr Sheils said. “Adding further to the robustness of the award process, advisers and practices needed at least 20 client ratings and a response rate of more than 30% to be eligible for an award.”
That said, award recipients typically had a client survey response rate of 47%, which means that the awards are based on a large and representative sample of clients.
“If financial advisers don’t measure trust between clients and advisers, they will ignore it, fail to cultivate it and ultimately risk losing it,” Dr Sheils said. “Measuring trust is important for creating a pathway for improving trust between advisers and the community, as well as building a sustainable advice business, and the best advisers and practices are doing this.”
The Adviser Trust! Score™ measures a number of qualities of the financial adviser and practice, specifically the quality of client service they offer, the business model they operate under and their reputation.
Advisers with high Adviser Trust! Scores™ have clients that act on their advice more often, believe they are more on track with their financial plan and are financially better off as a result of working with their adviser, are satisfied with the fees they pay, rate their adviser’s highly on fee transparency and believe they are getting better value than clients of other advisers.
An Adviser Trust! Score™ of 80 is regarded as excellent with the winners of the 2015 MTA awards having an Adviser Trust! Score™ of more than 91 (out of 100).
“We have developed a quantitative way to evaluate advisers and to help give consumers peace of mind when selecting an adviser, one that is beyond educational and professional standards, and is based on the voices of real clients,” Dr Sheils said.
In addition to Most Trusted Adviser and Most Trusted Practice, awards were also given for Technical Expertise, Communication and Interpersonal Relationship, Client Engagement, Client
Complete list of MTA winners and finalists
Note 1:
The key metrics used to measure ‘trusted referral’ were the Adviser Trust! Score™ and the Net Promoter Score® which were based on the question “Would you recommend you adviser/practice to your family and friends?”
Source: Beddoes Institute
