Market View From the Top
from Spicers CEO Gordon Noble-Campbell
It's important to compare apples with apples
6 November 2009
The news media has been running hot with the results of a recent Consumer NZ survey after eleven ‘mystery shoppers’ were recruited and asked to present their own circumstances to financial advisers and to request financial advice.
The shoppers, each equipped with their own unique financial situation, approached financial services institutions, New Zealand-wide financial planning chains and standalone adviser firms with a “one size fits all” survey, regardless of their advice specialty e.g. investment, risk or mortgages. .
The survey found that three out of 17 advisers produced ‘first draft’ plans that were rated "good". The remaining 14 were rated as "disappointing" or were "rejected". Spicers were rated in the disappointing category.
Soon after the results were released, I received a call from the National Business Review asking whether I thought Spicers rating result was justified?
Although I haven’t yet received the specifics of our performance rating from Consumer NZ, my immediate response was "NO".
Firstly, I felt the rating ‘disappointing’ was premature considering the ‘first draft’ plans in this group, according to Consumer NZ, could be made good with modification or clarification. Also, noting my comment above about the ‘one size fits all’ approach, I wonder whether the survey actually compared apples with apples?
A typical Spicers plan usually goes through several iterations and is fine tuned after ongoing client discussions are held to fully uncover their circumstances, needs and aspirations – and to identify whether Spicers is the best fit with any particular client.
If it was appropriate to progress further with the “mystery shopper” client, I am confident our robust processes would have refined the plan to ‘good’ as it progressed through the next stages.
Secondly, whatever the case, the quality of advice can only be determined by the outcome, not by an isolated snapshot of one small part of the advice process. It’s certainly not representative of the advice and service experienced by the majority of our 6,500 clients.
Our client portfolios were resilient during the global financial crisis: we avoided the collapsed finance companies in NZ; and we stuck to investing in the basics – shares, bonds, property and cash. This discipline has paid off. Our clients’ investments are liquid, well diversified, and available at any time if they wish to access their money.
If you have any questions around this article, please contact us at any time.
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