Increasing levels of competition between superannuation funds in the last 18 months has prompted Mercer to enhance the communication consulting side of its business.
In an effort to streamline the offering to clients of its communication consultation business, Mercer has now combined this business unit with its member services and advice unit.
“In recent years we have seen the need for more frequent and meaningful communication with members.
“A fund’s value proposition and unique voice can get lost in the abundance of compliance and disclosure based information now required to be sent to members,” said Mercer chief executive Peter Promnitz.
The newly structured communication team will be led by Anthony Schiavo, who said one of the biggest problems faced by many corporate superannuation funds was providing consistency across the range of member communication channels.
“We all know that members prefer face-to-face communication models,” he said, but recognise that the scale required for this type of approach in most cases makes it prohibitive.
According to Schiavo, providing a consistent message across the full range of member communication is the next best thing.
He said that while one of the inspirations for the upgraded structure was stronger competition between funds, it was interesting to note that choice of fund prompted more changes from trustees than members.
“Choice didn’t change member behaviour, it changed trustee behaviour.”
Schiavo described a specific aspect of its communication strategy for clients as a “paring down” of bulky compliance material, while staying well within legal guidelines.
“It’s about doing something clever with it,” he said.
For smaller corporate funds, Schiavo said that often it was about adapting existing strategies that have been successfully used by larger firms.
“[They can] leverage off the success of larger funds for competitive advantage.”
