SALES ASSISTANT ADVISORY BOARD March 31, 2003
Type of meeting: Feedback and Information Sharing Conference Call Facilitator: Laurie Burkhard
SAAB Attendees: Amy Foster-Mayberry Omaha, NE Bonnie Whyte Atlanta, GA Carole Northwood Chadds Ford, PA Carrie Deutsch Albany, NY Dawn Dodd Glastonbury, CT Deb Greitens Lincoln, NE Gail Shast Sewell, NJ Kathy Novotny Wichita, KS Nancy Gulash Wilton, CT Paul Fiumara Pittsburgh, PA
Home Office Attendees: Kirk Hulett Senior VP, Strategy and Practice Management Paul West Director of Branch Office Support David Hughes Operations Manager Gloria Rock Rep Relations Director Marc Haiar Product Consultant II Laurie Burkhard Senior Consultant, Practice Management
DISCUSSION TOPICS
After a brief introduction of all the attendees, the call began with a presentation on Straight Through Processing (STP). STP was well received by all. During the presentation, a few questions arose that the attendees wanted clarification.
Will any scanner work for STP? Yes. SAI will provide recommendations and minimum requirements. It will not be necessary to purchase the high-end scanners. The one that SAI is currently testing retails for $299. o Cost for an office would include the purchase of a scanner and the annual cost for the CD.
Yes, they can put the SAI software on their local repository.
The SAAB members would like the ability to track the history of PIPs/SWPs. It would be beneficial if a note automatically went into the client file in Advantage.
1 One comment that came up regarding the New Business Tab is that this will be an improvement. Currently, they get an email in the Secure Message Center stating the request is "closed." They are not confident that the action has been completed, only that the request had been seen by someone at SAI. The real-time and online status will be more reassuring to them.
A discussion arose around the 48 hours that items will remain on the New Business tab. Clarification was made that this is 48 business hours. Also, any items that will need action will remain until the action is completed. Only the business that is In Good Order will fall off the report after 48 hours. The majority felt 48 hours was enough time, but a few felt 72 hours might be helpful, especially for those offices that do not have an assistant in their office fulltime.
Action items ~ can we link it up so we can auto clear items that are waiting for a trade to settle, for example, waiting for cash to hit the account?
Questions arose on the WORM audit. Do they have to use a scanner? No, they can submit the business to SAI through the scanner software, fax or via mail. Once SAI receives it, we will scan it. SAI is WORM compliant.
SAI will burn a quarterly CD of all the documents, including any notes, etc. that an office wants scanned. A final fee for this has not been determined, but it will be reasonable. Purchasing the CD is encouraged for a continuity of practice and disaster planning.
All were excited for the New Business tab and wanted to know when they would be able to see it. Currently, it is being tested internally. The next phase will be to ask the SAAB members to test it. Our goal is to have it in production in May 2005.
The new FastForms design ~ they really liked the one page design.
Wanted to know the date that they will be able to reserve an account number online ~ target date: May 2005.
Questions arose on FastForms ~ why doesn't it always put a social security number on each page? Also, at times, not all the information comes down from Advantage such as phone number, driver's license number, etc.? They do understand why suitably doesn't come down. The problems they have encountered happen on both brokerage and non-brokerage accounts.
"Fantastic" is how they describe the enhancements to the check/certificate received blotter.
They wanted to know if it would be possible to link an image of the check to the check-received blotter.
2 They would prefer if the stock certificate and stock power were scanned together as one document. Today they are done as two documents. Dave explained that with the new upfront scanning it will greatly reduce the opportunity for documents to get lost since they will not longer be moving from desk-to-desk.
Rep Help feedback ~ those who use it really like it and use it regularly. Those who don't use it regularly do not like it.
o Name feedback ~ do not use the name Rep Help. Possible name change to Online Resource Guide. o Links in Rep Help do not always work. Daniel Bodeman is working on correcting this. It is being rebuilt from scratch. o Suggested that we design it for an Assistant that is new to the industry and then we could add links for more in-depth information. o No one thought their rep would ever use it on their own. o It was suggested that we survey Assistants going through the new assist training to see what they use Rep Help for.
Address control. This seemed to cause a concern since we are using the Postal zip code for the control. A couple of attendees mentioned that they live in areas where two towns share a zip code. When changed to the default, it will go to the wrong address. This could cause major issues. o They wanted to know if this is just for addresses going forward or if we were going back and cleaning up previously submitted addresses ~ SAI is doing both. Currently, we have gone through approximately 1 million old addresses and changed them to the postal format.
A question arose on exactly how paperless they could go and if so, how could they be ready for a major audit? For example, what could they do with all the non-brokerage statements they receive? Paul West stated they could send them electronically to SAI and we would scan them for the office. There may be an additional cost for this. Of course, these would be included on their quarterly CD. o Paperless ~ let SAI do it!
Would like to have an online help available when working in Advantage. For example, if they were working in Advantage and got stuck, there would be an immediate link to email technology as an online "chat" to get a response.
e*Office ~ calendar and tasks need a major overhaul. It was mentioned that tasks can kind of be used now, but it is clumsy. History and alerts needs to be improved.
The SAAB members want an improved client contact management system. They felt if there was a total solution, this would be good for the reps ~ one system to learn.
3 A concern was raised that if they close an account and later a small amount, such a 4¢, arrives in the account they no longer have any ability to do anything through Advantage (since it was previously closed). They would like the ability to manage these online instead of contacting the Rep Relations Center. o They would like to be able to see when an account was closed.
They would like NFS to offer something like a 13-month statement. It would be very beneficial to their clients if NFS offered a year-end statement that showed all the activity for the year. It was mentioned that this is on the NFS enhancement list, but no delivery date is set, it will not be in 2005. SAI will bring this to their attention again. o If NFS cannot delivery on this, a report generated by SAI would work as well.
SAAB stated that the Operations department was excellent, "so much better than my previous b/d." The felt the processing and the knowledge of the people in the department are great.
Verification Letters: o Would like all letters to the branch office in one envelope; or o Would like to access these online with a link; or o Would like to get all verification letters once a quarter on CD o Would like the ability to household accounts so specific accounts could get all verification letters in one envelope
Laurie Burkhard and Gloria Rock will find out and let the SAAB members know when and why SAI generates these letters without the initial update being generated by the branch office.
Assistant University ~ we asked the group for suggestions on sessions and advanced training topics for Assistant University:
o Advanced Topics: o Planning Tools ~ more advanced, workings of the program o Fee-based ~ more in-depth information on Managed Ops o Compliance "hot topics" o Products ~ features of various products such as fixed income, annuities, etc. o Mutual fund share classes and the change in regulations for each class of share, i.e., C shares
o Novice Topics: o "What We Call It" ~ introduction into SAI and industry terminology
o Other topics/comments:
4 o Compensation Department info is good, but at last year's AU, attendees went away more confused then when the session started o Licensing information including understanding of the various contracts such as ROA, AR, RR, etc. o They would like us to offer Firm Element and Regulatory Element CE at AU for those assistants who hold their licenses
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