Increased demand for Canada Life International's bond products is causing severe delays in service standards, according to the provider.
Speaking to FT Adviser, Canada Life International explained its customer services team was “stretched” because of this increased demand, causing advisers to wait up to 56 working days for a change to trust request.
The latest service standards from the provider sent to advisers, seen by FTAdviser, are:
- Deferment request – 6 working days.
- Single Ad Hoc Adviser charge request – 5 working days.
- Ongoing Adviser Charge request – 47 working days.
- New regular withdrawal – 17 working days.
- Change to existing withdrawal – 16 working days.
- Stop existing regular withdrawal – 5 working days.
- New trust – 44 working days.
- Change to trust – 56 working days.
- New assignment or assignment split – 48 working days.
- Change to adviser details – 56 working days.
- Change of Address (client) – 23 working days.
- Trust Registration – 5 working days.
According to Canada Life International these wait times are not normal practice and are a result of “increased volumes of business being received and the need to recruit additional resources".
It said there was a full recovery target in place for April 2024 to be back to normal service levels.
Canada Life said it was aware of the impact long wait times were having on advisers and clients.
It added: “We are aware that there will be an impact on our customers and we do not take this situation lightly. Our plans have been to target areas like claims and onboarding first, and then focus on other areas of the customer journey.”
The provider said it was important to be transparent with advisers on the worst case scenario times for processes which are outside of its service level agreements.
It said: “We are working closely with advisers, via our account managers, to improve the quality of application completion which reduces the processing time considerably.
“We have also redesigned some of our application literature to simplify the completion by advisers/customers.
“Looking ahead across the year, we are investing heavily in systems, processes and capabilities to deliver a streamlined, digitised and modern customer and adviser experience."
In terms of what Canada Life International is doing to reduce the current wait times, it said recruitment and training was “a priority”.
It said it was using resources across the wider customer service functions within Canada Life UK to support the teams in Canada Life International.
“A targeted and robust recovery plan linked to customer priorities is in place and additional resources are currently being trained to accelerate the recovery of normal service,” the provider added.
Advisers waiting longer than the times above or with concerns about the status of their requests are being urged to access the escalation route available via the Canada Life International sales account manager.
Dave Sutton, customer service director at Canada Life, told FTAdviser: “We are sorry for the delays being experienced by advisers and their clients, which we understand is very frustrating for them.
"Increased demand for our international bond products has stretched our customer services team’s current capacity to respond and we’re working hard to reduce these wait times.
“We’ve put a plan in place to drive more efficient and timely turnaround of customer requests but these improvements take time to work through.
