Mercer says CRM led transformation has improved its members' retirement readiness

Superannuation fund Mercer is reaping the long-term rewards of its investment in digital in 2015, seeing a 15 per cent increase in retirement readiness of its members.

According to Aaron Lochrie, Head of Customer Experience at Mercer, that success is also reflected in the perception of the company.

“Since the start of our transformation, we've seen an overall 16 point increase in our relationship NPS score. So our customers are actually feeling the difference in the experience that we're able to deliver through our investment in these technologies connected into our CRM environment.”

Lochrie highlights the impact the program has had on Mercer members, who are projected be financially comfortable in their retirement.

“The metrics around their financial outcomes are telling us that this work is having a difference,” says Lochrie.

Half a decade into the digital transformation program, the company is now able to utilise real time data to deliver an insightful customer experience right across the ecosystem, which Lochrie says is powered through propensity modelling and predictive analytics.

“That is helping us drive much better outcomes in terms of having relevant conversations at the right time.”

Cambell Holt, Mercer’s Chief Customer Officer, says focussing on consumer experience and the customer’s future expectations was a catalyst.  “Unsurprisingly, now, but at the time, it was novel that it actually, it's all about the consumer, and consumer expectation. Being able to deliver on that, deliver on the expectation of what a great digital experience was going to be brought by a consumer really informed the bedrock of our strategy,” says Holt.

The focus for Mercer’s digital transformation strategy was about delivering personalised experiences for customers to make it easier for them to interact with their superannuation, and ultimately achieve better outcomes.

“I think, historically, the industry was very transactional. Focus on compliance often got in the way of great customer experiences, and was often a good excuse or a barrier to delivering a great customer experience,” says Holt.

According to Lochrie, “We commenced this significant member led transformation that was a transformation across people, process, and technology. But it really was the investment in technology that brought new capabilities to the industry that hadn't really been seen before and deployed in the way that that they've now been deployed.”

It was not enough for Mercer to invest in the technological infrastructure. It was the company’s CIO Terry Godfrey who made the call to bring the technology teams closer to the customer and to the business, in order to create better alignment between the teams.

“From day one, this has been a partnership with our technology teams,” says Lochrie.

“From a design delivery perspective, we work intimately with our technology teams, and are completely connected strategically on where we're going and how we're delivering.”