According to EY’s national superannuation leader, Maree Pallisco, the early release of super was the biggest single member engagement event in the last 12 months, which the funds unfortunately failed to convert into a winning engagement strategy.
When googling "early access to super", members were likely to see a heap of information from the ATO and comparison sites, but not a single super fund made it onto the search engine's first page.
Ms Pallisco highlighted that this was quite clearly a missed opportunity by the industry to reverse their fairly poor engagement with members and to cement their importance in the creation of wealth.
“It’s clear from some of the research EY has done that individuals still do not understand superannuation,” she told nestegg.
“I think it’s going back to basics and helping individuals understand what superannuation actually means for them so they think about it earlier [rather] than later.”
As such, Ms Pallisco stressed the need for the superannuation industry to up its communication with members, especially those that frequently googled “should I draw down my super?”, educating them about the dangers of retiring with a smaller balance.
“The industry needs to help members understand this should be about their retirement and what will retirement look like if they don’t have enough in their superannuation fund. So, it’s starting that education early,” she said.
Ms Pallisco opined that changes made by the Australian government as part of the Your Future, Your Super reforms, are likely to provide another opportunity for the funds to lift their engagement.
“One of the other things that funds will need to do is how do they maintain the engagement, how do they build their brands, and in order to do this, they will need to understand what do their members want from them, and it might not just be better investment performance and low fees,” she said.
“There will be limitations on what funds can spend their money on, so it will be important for funds to continue to build their brands in other ways than flashing adverts on TV or through the radio.
“So, there is what our members want outside of what the regulators expect so we can retain our members,” Ms Pallisco said.
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