How To Really, Really Annoy The Rich…
Consumers – that is, the people we are in business to service, can only hold one idea in their heads about you at one time. One idea. Fullstop. That’s it.
That means, you can’t be all things to all people under one brand. It’s just not possible.
So, let’s imagine this – you have a brand which resonates really well with high net worth Australians… you dream up a new service – a category killer which will allow them to do all of their investing online, cheaply, efficiently and effectively, you launch it, they storm in…and it doesn’t work.
What happens next? Does the previous good experience or positive information they have about you mean they stick with you because of history? Or does the new idea become so powerful you have blown the brand forever.
The answer is that people will only really remember their last transaction with you and they can only hold one idea of you in their mind – so if the last experience was a bad one – then that’s what’s going to be on their mind.
The psychology, biology and biochemistry behind this is called Cognitive Dissonance and the theory was first identified in 1957 by Leon Festinger.
So, why is this an issue?
A long and exhaustive brandmanagement study is soon to be completed in finding out the decision making behaviour, buying preferences and brand preferences of wealthy Australian’s (and by wealthy, we mean those with more than $1 million in cash to invest at their discretion).
Recently, at a focus group which forms part of a series, we asked the attendees about the online services that the particular client used and found, perhaps unsurprisingly, the very rich in Australia use a variety of online, advisory, personal and phone-based relationships in dealing with their finances.
One of the interesting things about this group was we discovered they are all investors – active investors – in something. Property, business, shares, managed funds etc- and they all want is to have a system they can invest through.
So, the week before the focus group we primed them with a series of questions relating to the systems they currently use and asked them to road-test a new service being offered by one of Australia’s best known financial services groups, solely designed for active and wealthy investors.
The idea resonated with them, they had all heard of the service, they had all seen the ads and when it was explained to them they all liked the idea.
At this point, I should point out that we are not going to reveal the service that we are talking about – just what happened.
The platform is a single, integrated online account that brings together potential tax and cost efficiencies for active traders and investors in the Australian share market.
The platform promised is really, really cool – it combines shares, gearing, CFD’s and cash in one online account with all the elements to it – this service is a very functional, individual wrap account offering service imaginable.
Except it doesn’t.
It starts really well and then goes rapidly and irreparably pear-shaped from there.
The investors we know opened accounts and found the process of making an application remarkably easy and reported it was one of the best in terms using online tools, such as application forms and the ability to upload documents and scans.
But that’s where the good news ends.
The investors also found the log-on process to be cumbersome and slow.
Logging onto the platform on high speed internet took nearly four minutes. Initially we though that couldn’t be right so we did it again using a satellite service which guarantees the fastest broadband in Australia – and yep, our initial fears proved correct – it took almost four while minutes to load.
You then have to find the right log-in screen on the website – the first page has three or five days of the past week when it was being reviewed not being updated by 10am, so the trader is unable to see their live balances, effectively rendering the service useless.
Once you are in, you have to log-in again, then selecting log-on to a trading platform to bring up another log-on screen which requires re-entry of the same user id and password to log onto the trading platform (by this time you have been online nearly three minutes without being able to do anything).
Then, the Java platform does not load smoothly – it requires an acceptance of secure and unsecured items and it does not work properly with the Firefox browser.
While the functionality isn’t quite the same, the high net worth investors couldn’t help but compare this with IG markets or E-trade where there is one or two steps, and they were able to get to the trading screen in less than one minute.
The new system trading is simple enough once you work out what screens to use but the company seem to have more restrictions than most and are blocked from trading some stocks.
However, not only can you not trade some of the micro-caps, trade reporting is very difficult and is found in several places where a single limit order is placed but not completed within the day each parcel is reported separately and not summarised.
Also, not only is each parcel of securities reported separately, the CFD or share trading fee is also reported separately (in a different place on the website) and the GSL fee is reported separately again.
This results in a minimum of three transactions for a guaranteed limited order CFD or share trade. In most cases there were three parcel transactions per order, making trade tracking much more cumbersome and labour intensive.
Unfortunately for the new system, competitors would summarise a similar transaction in one transaction report.
And it doesn’t end there.
So, the upshot from the focus group?
Nice idea, well received in theory, however, the executives of the bank who had presumably spent millions in developing this platform, should have heard the sound of six Australian investors and about $20 million in investable assets, leave the room…
First Time Long Time says:
I just read platform hunters comments – don’t get dismayed – I want you guys to keep going – you are the only relief that I get as a planner from the constant stream of propaganda that I get from fund managers and my dealer group…
As for disrespect from industry professionals – I didn’t read the article before it was changed so I don’t know what he’s referring to – but my dealer group buys your research but my dealer group buys your research and one of my great joys is pointing out to them the difference between what they say is happening and what you say is happening. Its like we can tell them and tell them what is going on but until it appears in your research we can’t get the message through. Keep it up, keep it coming and keep asking the questions
Ditto says:
This industry really only does acquitisition. I’d bet anything that the platform being talked about here is Macquarie Prime.
A bunch of our clients rushed in only to be dissappointed – I think its all part of macquaries desire to cut us out of the loop. Talk about wanting it both ways.
Platform Hunter says:
What’s this? Burningpants rewriting its own stories and deleting comments from readers? Quite sad, and shows a complete disrespect for the industry professionals you are attempting to market your products to. Fair enough not wanting to be taken to the cleaners by lampooning the Macquarie product by name (no affiliation to MAC by the way), but surely you could try injecting even the slightest journalistic integrity into your rather thinly veiled attempts at flogging your wares under the guise of industry news.