In a market environment where the margins between providers are narrowing, quality of service becomes more important than ever. At Fidelity, we have made service a core priority for many years. Dan Smith, head of workplace investing distribution, explores what drives Fidelity’s excellence in this area.
There are differing opinions on what drives great customer service, but for me the key element is having the right people focusing on the areas that allow them to showcase their talents. By investing in our people, we enable them to provide high levels of quality service on a consistent basis.
In terms of employee development, we have long provided extensive training and development, a focus on wellbeing and comprehensive benefits – but we don’t rest on our laurels. We’re always keen to listen to our employees and find new ways to make a difference, such as our recent introduction of Family Care Leave and extension of our dynamic working policy.
The result is consistently high employee satisfaction and a wide range of awards highlighting that we are a great place to work. Most importantly of all, when it comes to customer service, the average tenure in our operations teams is over five years. This leads to consistent, quality service and great outcome for our clients and members as evidenced in our teams achieving over 99 per cent service level achievement over the last three years.
Don’t just take our word for it…
The effectiveness of our approach can be seen in our client and member satisfaction scores. Across six measured elements of our client service, our average score is 94 per cent. As these figures are the percentage of clients who rate us 8, 9 or 10 (out of 10) from satisfaction surveys, it’s rewarding to see this level of feedback across our client base.
Through and despite Covid and economic volatility the level of service offered by Fidelity to our clients has been the key differentiator. Consistent performance has been key to that success and, as a result, our client base is loyal – we’re extremely proud of our 99 per cent client retention rate for 2022 but we’re not complacent. We continuously strive to improve, working hand in hand with our clients to build long term, strategic relationships and to understand their business drivers and objectives. We proactively seek feedback on a regular basis, from both our clients and members, through surveys, proprietary research, and face-to-face roundtable sessions, taking on board thoughts and ideas that we build into our development cycle.
Staying one step ahead
At Fidelity, we want our clients to feel confident about the future of their workforce. We are seeing more clients redesigning their benefit packages to provide their members with greater choice. Our aim is to provide a range of services and guidance for clients and members so that they can take control of their finances in a simple and straightforward manner. We bring workplace pensions and personal investing products together, which allows our clients to deliver a flexible benefits package to suit the individual needs of their employees. We want members to engage with us in the ways that suit them best, and to give members choice and flexibility to meet their own needs. It’s an attractive proposition, but it’s a competitive market – that’s why we believe that quality service will always be an important differentiator and why customer obsession will always be at the heart of everything we do.