Continually improving our platform

The new Aegon Retirement Choices and One Retirement experience

Our new intuitive online experience, includes one login for ARC, One Retirement and Report Zone, multi-product quote and apply and a new ‘What you need to know’ screen showing what to expect at the start of a request.  You can find out more in our Improving your ARC and One Retirement experience guide.

We're committed to continually improving your experience, so we've recently introduced:

• Product reporting tool - you can view and download the valuation and performance of your client’s portfolio for a selected date range. Features include:
  • Customisable date range and product selection
  • Graphical representation of the valuation and performance of your client's account.

Access it today from your Client summary or read our overview.

• Company and trustee access - we’ve rolled out the new experience to companies and trustees, so they can benefit from a more secure, intuitive online experience.
• Email address changes - If you have an adviser and/or non-adviser role with user administration permission you can update another user’s email address. You won't be able to make this change if the user also has an Aegon Platform account.
• Quicker access to restricted share classes - instead of using Model Portfolio Manager, you can access restricted share classes from the Investment search screen when you're completing the transaction.
• Client ID - to make it easier to search for your clients, we've added Client IDs to the Client summary screen. You'll  find your client's Client ID directly above the Client summary page header. We've also added the Client ID the Customer dashboard.

ISA flexibility

We've introduced ISA flexibility on ARC and the Aegon Platform – so your clients can make the most of their annual ISA allowance. Your clients can now withdraw and replace funds in the same tax year without affecting their annual allowance – giving them more control over their savings.

A key milestone in our digital transformation - our new website

Last year we reached a key milestone in our digital transformation, with the launch of our new website. It's packed with new features, uses simple navigation and is completely designed around the needs of you and your clients:

• One website
• New support section
• Fully accessible
• Dedicated business support section
• Our new CPD hub is packed full of our experts' insights on the latest industry changes and investment markets. Our on-demand material is designed to help with client conversations and continue to grow your business.

We’re investing in technology and automation to become a more focused and efficient business.

We regularly ask customers to let us know how likely they are to recommend us to a friend or colleague, through our Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey. This industry-wide method of measuring customer satisfaction helps us understand areas we need to focus on.

We're pleased to say that the improvements detailed below are making a real difference, resulting in our NPS score increasing by over 11% in a six-month period (May 2024 compared to December 2023). 

Streamlining transfers in and out

We’re continuing to invest in increased automation of our end-to-end processes to streamline your experience and make it easier to do business with us:

• Introducing withdrawal and transfer out confirmations - to make sure you and your clients know exactly what to expect from us, we've introduced emails to keep you up to date with the progress of key money out requests, like withdrawals and transfers.*                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          If we have an email address on record, our new automated emails will let you and your Aegon Retirement Choices, Aegon Platform and One Retirement clients know we've received the request, what the next steps are and expected timescales. When the withdrawal or transfer is complete, we’ll send you both a confirmation email.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                *Email confirmations are currently unavailable for the following transactions: 
  • Aegon Platform - starting or changing a regular withdrawal and setting up an ad-hoc withdrawal.
  • Aegon Retirement Choices and One Retirement - adding a benefit crystallisation event.
• To improve the availability of transfer information, we’ve increased the number of  fund managers who send us daily fund reconciliations.
• We’re focused on automating asset transfers and removing manual intervention. To remove manual processes and speed up transfers, we’ve increased the number of fund managers who use Equisoft (formerly Altus transfer gateway).

Digitising verification

We’re piloting a new customer verification solution on ARC and One Retirement,  to reduce security risks and speed up the process. Results from the pilot have been very positive, with significant improvements on initial pass rates, good uptake and the successful introduction of a digital biometric solution.  We’re currently reviewing how we can maintain this experience ahead of a full rollout across our platforms and hope to have an update for you in the coming months.

Improving MI

We’ve listened to your feedback and created a new report to make it easier for you to see at a glance which clients have drip-feed drawdown, when payments are due and if a payment hasn’t been made. We’ve split the report into three categories – Drip-feed drawdown mandate, Drip-feed drawdown payments and Ad-hoc tax-free cash payments, making the information easy to dissect. You can also view a history of your clients’ previous drip-feed drawdown payments based on your chosen date range.

You can access the report through Report Zone > Product wrappers opened and held > Drip-feed drawdown and Tax-free cash report.

Closing products with zero balance

You told us you'd like us to fully close platform products with a zero balance, so your clients don’t receive unnecessary documents. We listened, and as a result now close your client's product if their balance has been zero, with no activity on the account for 12 months or more.

Support at the moments that matter

• Our customer-facing teams have received refresher empathy training focused on how to interact with customers at each stage of grief.  
• We’ve also enhanced our Bereavement, Power of Attorney and Divorce and pension sharing pages to make it easier for your clients to find what they need to know and which documents we need to see.