With its “Network2016” conference kicking off today, NAB-owned financial planning licensee Apogee has shown its move towards integrated advice is reaping results for clients and helping advice businesses to attract strong client satisfaction scores.
In 2015, Apogee announced it would make client experience its number 1 priority, as part of this continuing its focus on supporting practices to offer broader financial advice and services. Now, independent research commissioned by the business shows that Apogee-licensed businesses have returned an average client Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 55. This is compared with the financial planning industry average of 10.
Apogee attributes the results to having a strategy focussed on integrated advice. The majority of advice businesses licensed by Apogee already provide mortgage broking and/or accounting services in addition to financial planning advice.
“To succeed in the future, advice businesses will need to respond to changing client preferences. What clients are saying in this research is that they value their adviser and the advice relationship highly, but if their advice business does not currently provide advice on debt, tax and other areas, clients are asking for them to broaden the services they offer. That’s the great part of this client experience research – clients tell us what will improve their satisfaction, then Apogee can support advisers to deliver it to their clients,” said Brendan Johnson, General Manager, Apogee.
To this end, Apogee is supporting more advisers who may have traditionally provided insurance-only advice or mortgage broking-only advice to build the capability to provide advice on areas including cash flow management, lending, financial planning, superannuation and wealth creation, as well as accounting and tax services.
“This is part of offering greater value to clients, and the NPS and loyalty data show that this is really helping to improve the experience of clients of Apogee-licensed firms,” said Johnson, who also notes the benefit advisers get from Apogee’s focus on client experience.
“We have found that our licensee firms value being part of a professional advice network that is focused on the client experience and they also value sharing their insights with their peers.”
Apogee today kicks off its “Network 2016” conference with client experience futurist Dr Catriona Wallace presenting on the future of customer experience.
