Since our establishment in 2013, we firmly believe in placing our members (how we refer to our clients) at the core of our business. By doing so, we create a superior experience that builds trust and advocacy. To ensure an excellent member experience, we adopted Elevation in August of last year. This tool has been instrumental in helping us measure, analyse, and take action to embed a culture of excellence in member experience. Furthermore, the client feedback collected through Elevation provides valuable evidence of how we fulfil the Consumer Duty.

One of our primary Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is member confidence in their progress towards meeting their goals. We have chosen this focus because helping our members achieve their life goals and aspirations is at the heart of what we do. The greatest benefit our members receive from working with our wealth mentors (how we refer to our advisers) is peace of mind. By instilling confidence in our members that they are on track to meet their goals, we enable them to live their lives without unnecessary worry, particularly given the economic climate of the past 12 to 18 months.

Elevation’s assessment revolves around measuring clients’ confidence in their progress towards their goals. Through analysing feedback from over 250,000 clients via Elevation, VouchedFor has demonstrated that clients who are ‘couldn’t be more confident’ in their progress are 41% more likely to recommend their adviser compared to the industry average. Therefore, this metric becomes crucial for firms seeking organic growth.

When looking at the industry-wide data, Elevation shows that the percentage of clients who ‘couldn’t be more confident’ has remained unchanged since the beginning of this year, However, during the same period, we have managed to double the proportion of our members reporting the highest level of confidence, which is 50% higher than the industry average.

Our achievement in this area is a result of building a culture centred around excellent member experience and implementing governance and accountability processes that align with this objective. The first step was ensuring that we collect feedback from all our members, as anything less would not provide an accurate representation.

However, it is important to note that collecting feedback alone is not sufficient. We firmly believe that ‘not everything that counts can be counted.’ It goes beyond just receiving a 5-star rating; we strive to understand what our members are truly communicating. Therefore, we have implemented a process to analyse and act upon the insights we gather.

Our director of Wealth Rob Heath reviews our Elevation data on a daily basis to monitor our progress. This allows him to acknowledge our successes, share them with the wider team, and equally important, identify areas where we can further enhance our member experience.

At IronMarket, we have made it the responsibility of our wealth mentors to review member feedback as soon as it is received. In the event of any concerns raised, our mentors reach out to members promptly to address any unclear areas and ensure they have a full understanding moving forward, aligning with the principles of the Consumer Duty.

Through our Elevation system, Rob can assess the performance of each mentor in our firm, and they have access to their own dashboard, displaying their strengths and areas for development. This aids in their self-improvement.

Rob also regularly discusses the feedback received through Elevation during his weekly one-on-one meetings with the mentors, and the KPI of ‘member confidence’ is a crucial topic during their quarterly reviews.

Alex Whitson, the Managing Director at VouchedFor, commented on our results, stating that ‘IronMarket has exceeded industry benchmarks by focusing on the metrics that truly matter and taking proactive steps to improve them. This achievement is particularly significant considering the market’s uncertainty in Q1, with inflation reaching 10.1% in January and 10.4% in February. Above all, our team has provided our clients with the invaluable peace of mind they seek in their financial journeys.’