Telephone help lines for the country’s largest super funds are routinely fobbing vulnerable Australians off to their websites, with one major fund failing to answer nine in 10 incoming calls within a designated time frame.
Super Consumers Australia, which commissioned testing of 20 funds through mystery customers calling with questions ranging from how to join a fund to getting early super access due to hardship, says the results show a need for mandatory customer service standards in the sector.
The testing, independently conducted by Customer Service Benchmarking Australia by arranging for 50 calls to be made to each fund, found the average super customer’s experience score when calling for help was 49.9 per cent. No fund scored above 55 per cent.
Scores were calculated using measures of how easy the call was to navigate, how the interaction made the caller feel and whether the caller got what they needed.
Super Consumers said 23 per cent of prospective new customer calls were directed to the brand’s website as their only solution for more information, instead of receiving help over the phone.
In calls in which someone rang on behalf of a customer with limited English skills, 58 per cent “shifted responsibility back to the caller instead of offering direct support”. Only one of the 20 funds tested offered an interpreter.
‘After saying my mother is dying and I need money to go and see her in Europe, the response was: “OK, can you spell your surname.” ’
A caller from the study
Providing support and showing empathy to customers was another weak point identified by the research. The consumer group said about 70 per cent of calls from customers experiencing vulnerabilities, such as family violence, financial hardship, in the aftermath of death or seeking early access to their super, scored five out of 10 or lower for empathy.
“After saying my mother is dying and I need money to go and see her in Europe, the response was ‘OK, can you spell your surname,’” one of the callers said.
Super Consumers said poor customer service across super funds continued to harm Australians, including from delays to death and disability benefit payments, service disruptions and cyber incidents. Poor service can prevent people from accessing their own super and make difficult situations more distressing, it said.
Super Consumers chief executive Xavier O’Halloran said that beyond a healthy super balance for a dignified retirement, people “need to know their fund will pick up the phone when they’re grieving, need to access their money or ask a simple question, and actually help them.
“Superannuation is mandatory, but good customer service is not. That has to change.”
O’Halloran, calling for mandatory customer service standards, added: “People should not have to beg their super fund for basic help. If your fund is not listening, complain. If poor service keeps happening, consider taking your money elsewhere.”
Call centres for two of the funds tested, AustralianSuper and Team Super, consistently failed to answer callers within 15 minutes, to the point the researchers decided not to include their results in the overall average. AustralianSuper connected only five out of 50 calls in the timeframe, while Team Super’s response rate was 26 out of its 50 calls.
An AustralianSuper spokesman said the survey, conducted between August and October last year, occurred at the exact time the fund was “transitioning to a call centre provider”. The spokesman said AustralianSuper’s average speed of answering calls had improved to less than two minutes now, and that customer satisfaction scores were at all-time highs.
“We are extremely happy with how the team is performing for members,” he said. “At the time of the transition, members who contacted us across our channels were advised of delays and given advice on other ways they could resolve their queries.”
The Super Members Council, the peak body for Australia’s profit-to-member funds, backed the call for mandatory service standards, but questioned the methodology of Super Consumers Australia’s research. A spokesperson noted the research “excluded the full spectrum of service channels that customers typically use, being limited to the telephone”.
The spokesperson said that because test calls didn’t progress beyond identity verification, conversations could not be in depth, and as such, the testing did not capture the extent of a fund’s customer service.
“Millions of everyday Australians interact with their super funds each year, and they rightly expect and deserve consistently high standards of service and communication,” the spokesperson said.
Team Super declined to comment.
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Elias Visontay is a National Consumer Affairs Reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.From our partners
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