Advisers are incrementally becoming less satisfied with the performance of their primary platform provider according to researcher Investment Trends, while Netwealth has retained its spot as the platform advisers are most satisfied with.
Industry wide, 28 per cent of advisers now rate their overall satisfaction with their main platform as “very good”, down from 30 per cent last year and a peak of 40 per cent in 2014.
“The challenging business conditions brought by the pandemic has undoubtedly put pressure on platforms to maintain high service levels to advisers and their clients,” says Bailey Hao, senior analyst at Investment Trends.
Despite the trend, advisers do remain highly satisfied with some aspects of their platform services, including online transaction capabilities (49 per cent rated as ‘very good’), ease of use (44 per cent) and level of fees (42 per cent).
While platforms serve advisers well in many areas, there is still significant room for improvement,” Hao says. “Our satisfaction gap analysis highlights that adviser-facing support services should be a focus area – especially the call centre.”
“Since advisers most prefer to turn to their platform’s call centre for their support needs, platforms must devote more attention to improving their contact centre experience given its integral role in lifting overall satisfaction ratings.” he continued.
Netwealth retained its spot as the highest overall platform in 2021 with an 80 per cent composite overall satisfaction score, ahead of Hub24 at 78 per cent.
