Danielle Press spoke at FundForum International 2014. Hear more from her in our exclusive interview below, and read the full article beneath from Equip on driving Engagement.
Despite the libraries of behavioural studies, there is really no mystery to consumer behaviour. Consumers respond to messages that resonate with them.
What makes messages resonate is all about time and place – is the information relevant to what I am thinking about now? Is this information advantageous or convenient for me? Am I in a position right now to act on it?
It is why Equip has been establishing a centre of excellence within the fund for gathering and analysing member and market intelligence. While we are taking first steps on this journey, we believe that engaging with members in ways that are relevant and timely will be a core differentiator for us over the next five years.
This is important at a time when differentiation through superior investment performance is becoming more difficult, there is a convergence of fees across Australian commercial and not-for-profit (or ‘mutual’) funds and the direction that government policy is taking the industry promotes commoditisation of product offerings.
It leaves member experience at the front and centre of differentiation. To some degree, it takes funds down the unfamiliar road of differentiation based on how members feel about the fund, rather than on rational cost analysis of features and benefits.
When the Australian Government legislated choice of fund in 2005, the world of superannuation changed forever. Members changing jobs had a process by which they could ask their employers to pay future contributions into their nominated fund rather than the employer default fund.
Although it was not widely recognised, or acted upon at the time, this was the inflection point for the use member data – the point at which data, or the use of it, became strategic. Data management was no longer simply a matter of accurate record keeping, but about building relationships based on insights into member behaviour.
At Equip, we are in the process of member segmentation based, not only on demographics but on psychographics, believing that the hard metrics of age, income, account balance, gender and location are not the sole drivers of behaviour, although they are influential.
In the perfect world, we would like to engage with every fund member at a face-to-face level, but this is not realistic. However, at every member interface we are aiming to build the capability to talk with members at a personal level – anticipating their needs and delivering information and solutions appropriate to their individual circumstances and preferences.
Coming up next on the FundForum calender are FundForum Middle East, FundForum USA and FundForum Latin America.
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