The independent research, conducted by NMG Financial Services Consulting, was undertaken among 534 clients of Sesame members over the 12 months to April 2009. The research forms part of Sesame’s ongoing Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) assessment work and aims to gauge consumers’ level of satisfaction of their experience with their adviser.
Sesame views TCF as a continuous improvement process and believes the actions taken have already started to create benefits for all concerned.
According to the independent research an average of 97% of people said they would ‘definitely’, or be ‘likely’ to, use an IFA again and/or recommend them to a friend or family member.
Sesame executive chairman, Ivan Martin acknowledges that making the changes required to embed TCF has been very challenging for the advice profession, commenting: “The vast majority of advisers pride themselves on the quality of the service that they provide and always aim to treat their customers fairly. That said, there is always room for improvement in the way that we organise ourselves and many advisers are gaining a really valuable insight into the views of their customers: views which are enabling them to further improve the way that they serve them.
“We shouldn’t underestimate the time and effort that IFAs have had to invest in the TCF initiative, but we should also be reassured by the significant progress made by our profession. This independent research reinforces the huge value that people place in professional financial advice and the positive impact that this can have on their future financial well being.”
