There are 12.3 million working Australians right now — that’s a large market. But in order to thrive in today’s increasingly competitive financial services industry, Australian superannuation funds (know in United States as pension funds) must more actively and effectively engage with their customers. This is only possible through seamless access to member data that supports greater customer insights and personalized services.
In today’s consumer-driven market, customers have their choice of superannuation funds. Now, more than ever, they are actively choosing which funds they want to invest their money in. According to the Responsible Investment Association Australia (RIAA), “Investment is swiftly becoming a new form of conscientious consumption.”
The association’s November 2017 research report on Australian consumer attitudes towards investments shows that 78 percent of respondents would consider moving investments to another provider if their current superannuation fund engaged in activities not consistent with their personal values.
But how can superannuation funds in Australia and retirement funds in other countries connect with their customers and communicate shared values?
The answer is in the cloud. The modern integration cloud revolutionizes how financial companies or other organizations can integrate data from any source. And with Boomi’s industry-leading integration platform, superannuation funds can quickly and easily pull together all kinds of data to improve how they engage with customers.
Analyze, Evaluate, Communicate
If member engagement is done right, superannuation funds can build brand loyalty, increase retention rates and boost new member acquisition.
Historically, employers have only provided basic information to fund managers about their employees, such as name, address, gender, date of birth and fund balance. This practice is starting to change.
Also, investors are becoming more involved in the management of their superannuation funds, but they are unlikely to provide additional personal data to fund managers unless they believe they are getting something worthwhile in exchange — in other words, they need to feel trust.
Data analytics allows superannuation funds to gain a better understanding of their investors that goes far beyond simple demographics. Basic member information paired with data from website usage, social media, mobile apps, and other sources, can be used to build insights and more personalized interactions. These can then inspire customers to keep or increase their investments in a fund.
It’s also important for “super” funds to communicate with members through the channels that those members prefer, whether that is online, via the phone or through social media. External data can show how fund customers are likely to engage. And engagement strategies can be continuously refined to provide increasingly effective customer experiences.
Delivering Customer Insights With Integration
This sounds great, but how can superannuation funds pull together all the different information about their customers into a cohesive system that drives better customer engagement?
Most fund providers have multiple systems that track and hold data: financial accounts, customer relationship management applications, customer support consoles and more. In addition, many superannuation fund companies have outsourced their IT operations, leaving few internal resources to manage data quality and data analytics.
As a result, superannuation funds need to quickly and easily connect their disparate customer data sources, without a significant investment in IT. And in order to harness the power of member data, it’s crucial for that data to be accessible, up-to-date, and consistent.
But thanks to the comprehensive integration cloud from Boomi, superannuation funds can easily tie together data sources to obtain a single view of the customer — the first step on the way towards meaningful engagement.
A low-code platform like Boomi’s, with its intuitive “clicks, not code” model for building integrations, can make integration far faster and easier for fund companies. It is simple enough that business analysts can learn how to create integrations in weeks or days, with little help need from IT.
In addition to the integration of applications and data, Boomi Master Data Hub can synchronize data across applications to ensure quality and consistency.
For companies wishing to use APIs for additional data integrations, Boomi offers API management. Boomi Flow extends workflow capabilities across an organization, which can help super funds create the customer journeys they hope to provide.
Boomi’s integration cloud makes it easy for superannuation funds to centralize and harness their data, so they can put that data into action to build better relationships with their customers.