How do Financial Advisers Qualify as a “Most Trusted Adviser”?

Advisers can’t buy a place in the Most Trusted Advisers Network nor can they become Most Trusted Advisers through their affiliation with an organisation or company. Membership is by invitation only and is based solely on how participating advisers have been rated by their clients on an independent Client Experience Survey carried out by the Beddoes Institute.

Based on extensive analysis of several thousand client ratings of adviser performance, the Beddoes Institute has developed extensive eligibility criteria that Advisers must meet to qualify for the Network. The criteria are heavily based on client feedback from a comprehensive Client Experience Survey and also include meeting additional requirements around managing a minimum number of clients, minimum years’ experience as a qualified Adviser, membership with a professional financial advisers association and receiving A or B compliance ratings for the last 2 consecutive years.

Achieving an Adviser Trust! Score™ (AT!S™) of 85 or more out of 100 is the main criterion Advisers must meet to qualify for the network. The AT!S™ is a powerful success metric developed specifically for the Advice sector and is based on questions asked of clients including the widely-recognised Net Promoter Score® in addition to other customer loyalty metrics relevant to the adviser-client relationship.

How ‘Good’ are the “Most Trusted Advisers” in the Network?

We analysed client feedback and outcomes for clients of Most Trusted Advisers versus clients of ‘other advisers’ (i.e. those that did not meet the full eligibility criteria) in order to evaluate the quality of Most Trusted Advisers.

Most Trusted Advisers deliver significantly better outcomes to their clients; their clients believe they are more on track with their financial plan and are financially better off as a result of working with their adviser compared to clients of other financial advisers.

Most Trusted Advisers are rated higher on their qualifications and experience and technical skills than other advisers and have better interpersonal skills. As a result, clients of Most Trusted Advisers are more satisfied and have stronger relationships with their advisers than do clients of other advisers.

Clients of Most Trusted Advisers are significantly more satisfied with the fees they pay, they rate their advisers more favourably on fee transparency and believe they are getting better value than clients of other advisers.

Finally, Most Trusted Advisers are rated significantly higher on the service they provide to their clients than other advisers.

What is the benefit for consumers in all of this?

The Leading Practices Program is all about improving client service and provides advisers with a comprehensive tool for business improvement based on independently assessed client feedback.

This approach gives clients a ‘collective voice’ that advisers can respond to with positive and meaningful change within their practices. Principally this initiative is about empowering advisers to become better at what they do for the benefit of their clients.

The Most Trusted Advisers Network enables consumers to easily access advisers who are considered to be achieving an extremely high standard of service delivery via the website and through an app. This benefits those consumers who are looking to create a short list of advisers to approach for advice.

Have you sampled all of the advisers within Australia to come up with those included in the Most Trusted Advisers Network?

The Client Experience Survey is used as part of the screening and assessment process for the short-listed candidates across many industry awards including the AFA Adviser and Practice of the Year Awards. These advisers have already been pre-screened and qualified to reach this stage in the Awards process and are undoubtedly among the best in Australia.

In addition, we work with corporate licensee partners who promote our Client Experience Survey to their top performing practices in their network. This is typically the top 20 or so practices in each group.

Finally, we also work directly with high performing advisers who are focused on continuous business improvement within their practices and use our surveys and an evidence-based practice approach to help them achieve this. This group of advisers strive for excellence in everything they do and definitely qualify as high performing advisers.

Having validated the surveys and scores, we are now publicising the results to consumers as well as making our Client Experience Survey on which the Most Trusted Advisers Network is based more widely available for advisers. This is the focus of our work now.