The role of FAPs in building consumer confidence in the professional advice sector
On Wednesday I had the pleasure of listening to industry professionals discussing ‘The role of FAPs in building consumer confidence in the professional advice sector’, a lunchtime event sponsored by Chatswood Consulting, at the Financial Services Council's Building Consumer Confidence Conference.
Chatswood Consulting would like to extend our thanks to the speakers on the panel for their time and sharing their insights with us:
• Michael Hewes - Director of Deposit taking, Insurance & Advice, FMA
• Susan Taylor - CEO, FSCL
• Hannah McQueen - Author & Founding Director, AdviceFirst / Enable.me
• Ryan Edwards - Managing Director, The Adviser Platform
• Trecia Brown - Head of Customer Outcomes, New Zealand Financial Services Group
Michael spoke about how we have 1407 licenced FAP’s, and how the FMA has around 40 new licences on the go at any time. He mentioned that as advisers you might be helping vulnerable people and to try and make communications as easily understandable as possible, everything from making sure the font size is large enough to be easily read to using simple language.
Trecia spoke about how we need to use systems and processes to keep customer data safe, keep our language positive, build a risk aware culture and how we can manage complaints and use them to improve service. Trecia also spoke about the need to work together as an industry to promote the value of advice.
Ryan spoke about a shift in language from compliance to governance. This helps to change our view from one of merely achieving a base level of compliance to a wider vision of compliance assurance, and leadership by using customer focused principles to guide development of a culture – more like ‘how we do things here’ rather than meeting an externally imposed requirement.
Susan spoke about how we should be talking with customers about our complaints processes and how we have an independent, external complaints process before there’s ever a cause for complaint, so we can build confidence that should anything go wrong customers know what to do about it and are confident it will be handled fairly and well. Susan recommends that advisers put themselves in the shoes of the reader of their communications – would they understand it? Will it have jargon in it they may not understand? Susan mentioned the possibility of using alternative communication forms, such as videos, to help get your message across clearly.
Hannah spoke about how when you have a product you’re proud of you have to be able to articulate it to customers in a way they can understand. It was interesting to hear her expand by talking about ways to track how well the client is on track: are they achieving what they set out to achieve in the plan? Keeping these in view, checking in, and seeing how to course correct to achieve them is a good guide to ensuring they stay customer focused.
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