Scottish Widows

Jackie Leiper, managing director – pensions, stockbroking and distribution at Scottish Widows

What did your company do to earn the five-star award this year in your categories?

• We have consistently provided high levels of support to advisers since the Financial Service Awards was launched in 1990.
• We have made significant investments in digital improvements, supporting advisers in developing their businesses.
• We have moved our relationship model to be wholly advised and increased telephony and face-to-face engagement with advisers, bolstering our end-to-end service provision.
• We have maintained our robust home-working programme and supported advisers to establish and maintain their remote working practices.
• We have created tailored Covid-19 support materials for our advisors.

Why did you enhance service to advisers and what do you plan to do next year?

Our goal is to support advisers in recovering successfully and sustainably from the impacts of the pandemic. By building strong, personalised relationships with our advisers and by listening and acting upon their feedback, we support them to deliver a best-in-class service. Through our ongoing investments in digital & technology, we aim to ensure every transaction is simple and adds value to our advisers’ businesses. Our acquisition of Embark will further enhance our proposition for intermediaries with a broader platform solution and improve our digital ecosystem for advisers.

What have you done to improve service over the past 12 months?

We have continued our investment in digital improvements, for example removing the need for wet signatures and using video technology to connect with advisers, and we have strengthened our communications so that advisers are aware of our growing suite of online tools and services. We have moved our relationship model to be wholly adviser and no longer product led, increasing telephony and face-to-face engagement to provide a more personalised end-to-end service to our advisers. We have invested in our people to maintain our robust home-working programme and have supported advisers with our best practice techniques to establish or uphold their own remote working practices. We have created specialist Covid-19 support materials in the form of webinars, vlogs and expert series publications to support advisors as we start to emerge from the pandemic.

What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

Our planning for 2020 and 2021 could have never prepared us for the extent to which our crisis management skills would be put to test and intensive business continuity planning. Our number one priority is colleague safety and we made a decision as we entered lockdown (despite our essential worker status as a financial services provider) to send all colleagues home. Over the course of the past 18 months we have implemented successful remote working, developed more personalised relationships with our advisers, retained our innovative proposition development and delivered the operational service levels that our advisers have come to expect from us. 

What kind of investment does good service need?

We have a programme of ongoing, sustainable investment in order to continue to meet the varied needs of our advisers. This includes continuous digital investment and innovation underpinned by ongoing colleague upskilling and reliable operational service levels. The ability to respond, at pace, to challenges our advisers may be facing is fortified by a flexible and accessible investment programme.

What do you plan to do for 2021-22?

As we emerge from the pandemic, we will continue to support our advisers with their remote or hybrid working practices, just as we will support our colleagues with fully agile, hybrid and home-working options. We have significant investment plans in technology with a focus on increasing service efficiency and support for advisers and through our acquisition of Embark we will further enhance our proposition for intermediaries with a broader platform solution and improve our digital ecosystem for advisers. We will also continue to play our part in helping Britain recover via our charitable partnerships including Mental Health UK, MacMillan and Scottish Widows Care.

What does good service mean to you?

Our goal is to support advisers with the provision of accessible and relevant propositions delivered through a personalised relationship model and underpinned by strong service support, helping advisers to grow their businesses. The support and service our advisers receive from us is at the heart of our successful business model and is vital to ensuring strong customer outcomes.