Industry superannuation fund high-balance members were the most satisfied of all super members with balances over $100,000, with self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs), the historic winner for this segment, trailing by 7.3 per cent in satisfaction levels, according to Roy Morgan.
Roy Morgan’s Single Source survey for the six months to April 2018 showed industry super funds had the highest satisfaction with members of all account balances over $5,000, including members with $700,000.
In contrast, SMSFs saw declines in satisfaction for most higher balances, losing 11.6 percentage points among members with $100,000 to $249,999 and 4.3 points for those with $250,000 to $699,999. Satisfaction with SMSFs grew by 3.5 percentage points for members with over $700,000.
Retails super funds provided the highest levels of satisfaction for members with balances under $5,000 at 59.6 per cent but struggled to impact other customer segments.
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The largest segment by market share, the $5,000 to $99,999 range, saw industry fund members most satisfied with 58.4 per cent, with retail funds suffering a drop of one percentage point since the last survey to 55.3 per cent. This segment comprises 38.3 per cent of the total super market.
Roy Morgan industry communications director, Norman Morris, said funds should consider the size of the market when working out priorities.
“Deciding which customers to prioritise is … important, given the heavy skew of the market towards high balance account holders. Despite representing a small segment of the population, the industry super fund satisfaction lead among the $250k-$700k category is likely to be more valuable for them than the satisfaction for accounts under $5,000 will be for retail super funds,” he said.
“Arguments could be made for developing loyalty with low-balance members to help them grow into larger account holders, though this will require super funds to invest not only in the market, but in their own customers, in the long term.”
VicSuper saw the highest growth in satisfaction of individual funds, having grown 15.4 percentage points since April 2017. Other high gains in satisfaction include HOSTPLUS with 7.1 points, First State Super with 6.3 points, and Cbus with 4.9 points of growth.
Funds with declining satisfaction include QSuper, dropping 0.9 percentage points, One Path (-1.3 points), SunSuper (-1.7 points) and MLC (-4.4 points).
