Dealer groups urged to measure adviser satisfaction

With dealer groups across the industry struggling to retain planners, commentators are urging them to adopt the Net Promoter Score (NPS) system to get a better understanding of advisers’ satisfaction with their services. 

NPS is a management tool which can be used to gauge the loyalty of a firm’s customer base by getting respondents to rate their satisfaction levels, and asking them to elaborate. 

With regards to dealer groups specifically, the system can highlight the services planners value the most and ways they can improve. 

Managing director of Securitor Matt Englund is a strong advocate of NPS as a measure of advisers’ level of satisfaction with dealer group services. 

Some groups use adviser attrition to measure planner satisfaction, but that was perhaps a little too late if the planner was already choosing to move on, Englund said. 

The strength of the NPS system is in the verbatim comments from advisers that are captured through the process, he said, adding the industry as a whole could benefit from the system. 

Dealer groups are facing growing challenges to retain advisers, and using the NPS system to measure planners’ satisfaction with the dealer group would be a great idea, according to Zurich national manager of sales strategies and research Marc Fabris. 

Full surveys can provide more information, but the NPS gives more clarity, he said. 

The dealer group environment has been quite competitive and it’s getting harder for dealers to differentiate themselves from each other, he said. 

Dealer groups have been more focused on compliance and legislation in recent years, and if they are not keeping up with their competitors it becomes easier for other dealer groups to vie for advisers, he said. 

There have been big groups of advisers moving en masse from multiple dealerships in the last year, so trying to retain them is critical, Fabris noted. 

The NPS is an easy way to get a sense of engagement with planners on any issues they may have, he said. 

Dealer groups can find consistencies across advisers to help them implement change, he added.  

Synchron director John Prossor said Synchron did not use a formal survey to gauge its planners’ satisfaction with the dealer, but the question was included in its adviser review, held on an annual basis for most advisers. 

However, state managers and directors were in regular contact with their advisers and would hear pretty quickly if they were dissatisfied about something, he said. 

AMP director of advice and client solutions Steve Helmich said the NPS was useful for some dealer groups, but AMP was happy with the results it received from its surveys. 

AMP uses an independent bi-annual phone survey of planners called Adviser Voice. 

AMP has a very strong history with Adviser Voice and can track trends over time, he said.