What you need to know

• Aware Super has hit the latest milestone in it program to merge five different brand experiences into one on a unified platform.
• Adobe and Quadient are the new winners on the tech stack front, while Qualtrics scored a 3 year renewal to help Aware with its customer listening programs
• Aware exec says the company is building its transformation on a platform that provides "One data source, one system, one platform, one ecosystem.”
• CRM development is ongoing.

One vision

A series of mergers and acquisitions over the last ten years – rolling together First State, Vic Super, State Plus, WA Super and VISSF – have created scale for Aware Super, now Australia's third largest super fund with $150bn under management. But the dealmaking has also brought its own problems – disparate platforms and tech stacks, and a disjointed brand experience. Now Aware's moving to bring everything together so that the front end experience links fully with a streamlined back-end.

It took a big leap towards that goal last week, launching new marketing and CX capabilities built on elements of the Adobe stack, along with Quadient, a platform which hosts Aware’s operational member communications. It also doubled down on a customer listening program using Qualtrics.

Describing the desired end-state to delegates at Sydney conference last week, Nicola Smith, head of member experience and complaints at Aware Super, channelled Freddie Mercury: “One data source, one system, one platform, one ecosystem.” 

Plus, better returns for Aware Super's one million members.

“The goal is to have profoundly simple and consistent experiences across the board, while also delivering scale benefits. And ultimately it'll mean lower fees because you're not maintaining multiple platforms.”

According to Smith, the wider transformation program came about as a way of taming complexity.

“As you merge with a lot of other organisations, there are lots of different ways of operating, a lot of different tech systems. So we set about on this journey probably about three years ago to re-platform and to get the whole organisation onto one registry system.”

Taking back control

The end result is a back end system that will enable Aware to have all of its data in one place, and to better understand all of its members collectively through all their experiences, she told Mi3 Australia.

“We've also got an advice arm, so it's bringing in all the advice data. The first thing was to move Vic Super, which is one of the merged brands, to get onto the platform as they were already using the core tenets of it.”

The transformation has also allowed Aware to simplify administration. 

“We had an outsourced administration at the time, whereas Vic Super had an in sourced administration. So it was an opportunity to bring everybody together onto the one platform… to in-house the operations, and to really take control of the operations.”

Smith described the platform that went live last week as the registry system. "So it’s the core system that holds all the member data, but we replatformed.  We brought in an entirely new tech stack, and some new capabilities with Adobe and with Quadient as well.” 

People repowered

The project is not simply a tech transformation but also a people transformation, says Smith.

“It's humans that innovate, not so much the technology. It gives us a great foundation to do that, but we're embarking on a reimagining of three streams; how we work, how we behave, and how we're organised. So we're really looking at the entire organisation. And I'm excited because we're taking a design-led approach to doing that. 

“That’s a really human-centred approach to how we do our work because we want to make sure that we remove any of those friction points for our members but also for our people."

Smith described the transformation as grounded in "really rich data and insights” that will help the firm understand better understand members and improve personalisation.

Marketing-CX feeder

The work of the experience team also closely aligns Aware's marketing function.

“We're both in the Growth Division, the experience function and the marketing function. So we collaborate a lot. We take all of the insights and learnings and we share that at either leadership forums, and also down in individual teams through presentations, lunch and learns – those sort of thing,” Smith says.

Per Smith: “We've got a segment-based team: Youth, Grow, Retire. So we partner with each of those different segment teams and share the insights with them.”

She gives a recent example of a listening program that identified concerns members had about fund performances given macro headwinds that have driven low or negative returns across the sector over the last 12 months.

“We identified that members were feeling concerned about the right next thing to do. If you're young, it's like just ride it out. You've got plenty of time, but if you're nearing retirement, you might want to take some actions. We partnered with the marketing team. We shared those insights directly from that and built a whole program.”

That triggered a range of actions such as meeting with the investment team, recording videos, putting it up as a core message on Aware’s digital platforms, proactively communicating with members to reassure them, and offering guidance on what they should do, even if the advice was to do nothing at all, says Smith. “Just to give them that confidence that they were in good hands and not to worry.”

Listen and learn

Smith joined Aware from BT in October 2019. The former Westpac and Qantas exec almost immediately set about putting in place a formal listening program, opting for Qualtrics and recently renewing the three year deal.

She said the listening platform has informed the tech transformation, because "it really opened up the organisation to what our member’s experience truly is."

It's since moved from an "foundational" approach to "listening at relationship episode and interaction levels" and applying the system across its new digital assets.

“With this new platform, our digital capability has just been enhanced enormously ... Members had been telling us that everything was paper-based, and [they] had to do forms and paper-based signatures when what they were really looking for was that digital capability. Obviously listening to all of that fed into the development of the platform.”

With paper-based pain points and multi-brand disconnects biting the dust, next up is the development of a wider CRM system.

"Super is complex and it impacts everybody. And the superannuation industry is going through enormous transformation at the moment. From our members perspective, they're really wanting to understand super better, and to understand the things that they need to do to make sure that they're set up for their best retirement."

She said the new tech platform would be an important part of that.

"It gives us fantastic foundations from which to design and build some great experiences."