Super Council Slams SCA Call Centre Study Methodology

The Super Members Council (SMC) has publicly questioned the research methods used in the recent Superannuation Call Centre Experience Report released by Super Consumers Australia (SCA).

Study design and its limitations

The report draws on 1,000 telephone enquiries, comprising 50 mystery‑shopping calls to 20 super funds between 7 August and 15 October 2025. Callers were assigned to three scenarios: prospective customers (40 % of calls), culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) callers (30 %), and customers experiencing vulnerability (30 %).

According to an SMC spokesperson, “The research methodology has limitations. It excluded the full spectrum of service channels that customers typically use, being limited to the telephone.” The report itself notes that no conversation included identity verification or discussion of account‑specific information.

Because testers were not actual fund members, the calls never progressed beyond the member verification step, a process SMC says is essential given the growing risks of fraud and scams. Real members, the council adds, expect robust identification checks before any detailed discussion can occur.

Industry reactions to the findings

Mary Delahunty, chief executive of the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA), acknowledged that SCA’s data highlighted areas for improvement but warned that “the experience of mystery shoppers is not same as that of actual fund members.” She emphasized that protecting members’ funds and data from fraud remains the highest priority, and that rigorous identity confirmation can be frustrating for mystery shoppers.

SCA chief executive Xavier O’Halloran explained that prospective‑customer calls did not require verification, yet “they still perform poorly when they tested those people.” For CALD and vulnerable‑customer scenarios, the study focused on the conversation preceding identity checks. “What we were testing … is basically for them to act like a human to say things like, ‘I’m sorry for your loss, here’s the process…’” O’Halloran said, adding that the funds “performed really poorly on that.”

No fund reached the “green zone” benchmark of an 80 % customer‑experience score. AustralianSuper and Team Super were singled out for low answer rates, making their performance impossible to assess reliably. Calls to AustralianSuper connected only 10 % of the time, while Team Super achieved a 52 % connection rate within 15 minutes.

Calls were placed randomly throughout the business day over a ten‑week span. The report characterizes the prolonged wait times as a “systemic failure to manage normal call volumes rather than simply a busy period,” noting that three months is a long interval for members to be unable to reach their fund.