Knowing your members and what they want

Member engagement has become central to the success of Australian superannuation funds and, as Damon Taylor writes, a key to that engagement is learning more about who those members are and what they want. 

If one thing has characterised Australia’s superannuation industry in recent years, it is almost certainly the pace of change. Evolution that may have happened organically has been fast tracked and yet in many respects, the far greater challenge has been bringing members along for the ride. 

In such an environment, member communications have been put to the test but for Peter Murphy, Chief Executive Officer of Christian Super, funds’ ability to segment their memberships and tailor messages has meant that most have passed with flying colours. 

“So when I first started with this fund in 2008, we would send one newsletter every quarter but we wouldn’t know who read it, we wouldn’t know what articles were picked up and what articles were really resonating with our membership,” he said. “But that’s changed now because we do segment our data and we do segment our membership.” 

“We now send out our communications by e-newsletter and can actually tell which articles are resonating with our members and, more importantly, which articles aren’t,” Murphy continued. “Its given us a much greater understanding of our members and of what is useful to them.” 

“And given how much change we’ve seen in financial markets and superannuation recently, that sort of insight has been invaluable.” 

Offering a broader perspective on how segmentation had aided the member communications effort, Vicki Doyle, Head of Corporate and Retail Superannuation at BT Financial Group, said that she could actually see two forces at play. 

“So firstly, there’s the segmentation piece and making messages relevant to members based on their own particular needs,” she said. “And I guess that’s the 'what’ of the message, talking to people (even if they’re disengaged) about pieces within superannuation that are particular to their moment in time.” 

“But the second part, I think, and the piece that is going to accelerate all our efforts is the digitalisation of communication with members.” 

Indeed for Doyle, the digitilisation piece is so important because it is what allows messages, when triggered by segmentation, to be more impactful. 

“So life stage has been the traditional segmentation technique but we’ve also started to use behavioural insights, life events, investment choices and even how mature members’ views around superannuation are,” she said. “For example, we’ll look at whether our customers are increasing or decreasing their super contributions for the year and that’s of course a trigger that tells us they’ve got more disposable income or less disposable income.” 

“Similarly, if they’re changing investment options, that might mean that the consumer is becoming more engaged with their super,” Doyle added. “And the question becomes how you start communicating with them and saying 'we know that you’ve started to engage with your super, you’ve started looking at your investment options, now might be the time to reassess your insurance.’” 

“So segmentation has revealed all these different sorts of triggers but its the digitilisation of communications that allows us to grab that opportunity, to deliver bite-sized electronic messages and have a conversation with our members in a simple and easy way.” 

Yet in an age where information is available at the click of a button or the touch of a screen, it seems the digitalisation of communications is entirely appropriate. The relationships that a fund has with its members must be supported by solutions that are sophisticated enough to meet both parties’ needs but for Michael Pennisi, Chief Strategy Officer for QSuper, that reality is something much of the industry is still grappling with. 

“I think our industry’s been grappling with this like lots of industries, struggling to discover how we can best embrace it,” he said. “But it has to be about adding value for members.” 

“So a really simple example of that sort of thing, but one that we’re actually quite proud of, is videoconferencing,” Pennisi explained. “Now we’ve done that because we’re a Queensland-based fund with members who might have to travel from Longreach or Mount Isa to their nearest major city in Rockhampton, Townsville or Cairns when they need to see a financial planner.” 

“But that’s a long way and a lot of time lost just to see one of our planners face-to-face.” 

The point, according to Pennisi, is that QSuper didn’t want the financial advice process to be difficult for its members and was only too happy to assist in providing a mutually beneficial technological solution. 

“So what we’ve had in place since late last year is essentially video planning interviews,” he said. “Real time interviews with a QInvest financial planner where you can share documents, the planner can use technology to do simple things like refer to graphs, circle them and generally provide the same level of service as would be provided in a face-to-face meeting.” 

“Its still very much one-on-one but, importantly, our members are no longer being inconvenienced by the long journeys they would otherwise have had to make.” 

Sharing many of Pennisi’s views, Doyle said that all super funds were at the very early stages of increasing the sophistication of their member communications efforts. 

“But to be honest, I think that’s because we’ve needed regulatory change to enable us,” she said. “And voice consent, which was introduced on 1 January, is the perfect example of that.” 

“Its meant that instead of sending members paperwork to roll over their superannuation, having them fill it in and then send it back before we then send it off to some other super fund, you can now talk to the client, find their super fund, tell them the balances and then get their consent over the phone,” Doyle explained. “Its gone from being what was probably a 10 week cycle down to what can be, from a customer’s perspective, a 2 minute conversation.” 

“And that’s clearly very powerful when it comes to engagement.” 

Indeed for Doyle, such regulatory change has been the missing piece for the superannuation industry, the enabler letting funds take their segmentation and information delivery to the next level.  

“In many ways, the industry has been held back from getting as segmented as we’d like because we haven’t had the innovation around how to deliver,” she said. “That regulatory overlay is obviously an important safeguard for customers but it hasn’t until very recently allowed us as an industry to be as sophisticated as we might like.” 

“But in a lot of cases, its there now and so we’re able to capture customer behaviour,” Doyle continued. “They can opt in, they can opt out, they can give you feedback and tell you whether they do or don’t want to receive things in an email or via an SMS or over the phone.” 

“We’re finally moving to two-way communication and I think that’s where segmentation really starts to shine.” 

Of course, in an environment in which changes to legislation and regulation have been coming thick and fast, delivering targeted messages efficiently is only half the story.  

Knowing exactly what to communicate in the event of complex changes is equally challenging and according to Murphy, critically important as well. 

“For me, this is the piece of the puzzle that is most important,” he said. “How do you make the complex simple for our members?” 

“And it comes down to how you condense down things that are not known to things that are certain for our members,” Murphy continued. “Its one of the great challenges that super funds have in terms of being able to help educate our members as to what’s happening in the superannuation space when its still a bit uncertain and when the substance of it is incredibly complex.” 

“It's a challenge for all funds, understanding that there’s huge complexity out there and making sure that we’re constantly making the information we deliver as simple as possible for our members to digest.” 

Reinforcing Murphy’s perspective, Doyle said that communicating any regulatory change was difficult when the fund couldn’t tell their members what was in it for them in the here and now. 

“The regulatory reform we’ve got coming through from Stronger Super and SuperStream is about setting up a good strong system for the future but how many of us as consumers of any product really want to understand all the machinations of the system?” she asked. “We probably don’t. What we want to know is what does that mean for me?” 

“Does it mean I’ll get a better product here and now? Or does it mean that things are going to drastically change?” Doyle explained. “So I think these regulatory reforms will go through a few years where its challenging because portfolio holdings statements and the like are designed to help us get to a more comparable position where customers can be able to make more informed choices and can try and choose between the options.” 

“But without personalisation, and again chunking information down into something that’s a bit more bite-sized, I think its hard for people to really get their heads around.” 

For Pennisi, super funds would always need to ensure that members were adequately informed but that didn’t necessarily mean bombarding them with information. 

“And it isn’t always an easy thing,” he said. “As an industry, we have a responsibility to not make super more confusing than it should be for our members and to do that, we should really be focusing on how we make sure they understand what their super is about and how regulatory change is going to affect them personally.” 

“We need to look at different ways or clever ways of getting these messages across but what I think we all need to keep in mind is that more information does not necessarily equal better understanding.” 

Yet if super funds and their communications teams need to be careful with respect to regulatory information overload, they must also be in a position to transition smoothly between information and advice. 

And the key, according to Pennisi, is ensuring that one’s financial advice and communications teams remain both closely linked and closely aligned. 

“I actually think that if there’s a silver bullet out there with respect to engagement, that’s one of them,” he said. “What we find is that our members ring us and they just want help.” 

“Now, they won’t know whether its general advice, whether its factual advice or whether its full advice that they’re asking for - they just know that they want our help,” Pennisi explained. “And so the nut we need to crack as an industry is how we seamlessly, and within regulatory constraints, take the members along that journey.” 

Offering a similar perspective, Murphy said that the typical fund member didn’t understand the difference between general advice and specific advice. 

“And if that’s the case, its then about developing something that is as close as possible to an integrated solution,” he said. “You want to get the information or advice out to members quickly and easily but it also has to be practical because when they receive it, they have to be able to do something with it.” 

“And I say that because that’s what builds up trust, that’s what encourages members to actually follow up,” Murphy continued. “So as much as you possibly can, integrating your advice with your call centre, with your website is really really important.” 

Alternatively, Doyle said that while the transition between general information and financial advice was undoubtedly important, that did not mean there was a need for the two services to be embedded. 

“I think there is a way, particularly digitally, to navigate a customer through that process and then do the right handoff when the information being provided starts to become more personal,” she said. “In fact, its probably easier doing that transition digitally because you can structure the information screen by screen and take the customer through a journey.” 

“Then, once they get to a point where they’re starting to consider personalised information and they’re going to act on that, its up to a fund to ensure they give the customer enough information about all the pro’s or con’s of why they might want to seek advice or understand the implications before they make a decision,” Doyle continued. “For me, that’s a much more transparent mechanism - you can track how people move through your website so you can understand where they drop off, where are the things they don’t understand, whether they’re clicking to chat.” 

“You can even direct them to a call centre and if the call centre is very skilled in understanding that they’re now talking about personal information, that they really should talk to a financial planner or to an intra-fund advice team, then that transition is complete.” 

For Doyle, the sophisticated information delivery systems that super funds were aspiring to should be more than up to the task. 

“From a digital perspective, I don’t know if it is that hard,” she said. “In fact, I think it helps the client to understand why you’re suggesting that they might need to go and get advice or that they might need to consider the implications around their insurance or their investment option or whatever it might be.” 

“I think you actually can lead them through that journey more clearly in a digital sense.” 

Yet when all is said and done, the best measure of the super industry’s member communications success is clearly engagement. And for Doyle, while individual funds have made some significant gains, there was still a lot more that they could be doing. 

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that super funds have come a very long way on engagement,” she said. “And some of the segmentation work done in the last few years is probably the perfect example of that because its allowed funds to tailor communications to members and make it more relevant.” 

“However, I still feel we’ve got a lot more opportunity to become even more personalised with communications and really engage our customers so that they can understand what their choices are and where to from here,” Doyle continued. “We’re at a halfway point in many respects - we’ve come a long way in the last couple of years but we now have some levers that enable us to really personalise information with clients.” 

“And I think that’s where we can get really savvy with how we communicate with customers with bite-sized messages, letting people really understand their choices and how they impact them.” 

Reiterating Doyle’s point as to exactly how important good member communications could become, Pennisi said that when done right, the impact could be huge. 

“Everything we do as funds, every touchpoint contributes to how our members feel about their interactions with us,” he said. “So if we’re doing a good job, they will go to their neighbour, they’ll be at a barbeque, and say 'you should be with QSuper, their fund is really shooting the lights out.’” 

“’I’m informed, I understand it, and I know I’ve got a partner when it comes to saving for my retirement and beyond.’”