Aegon's phone lines close and Hargreaves Lansdown makes service cuts

In line with government guidance on coronavirus, Aegon closed its offices and said it is therefore unable to answer the phones. If advisers have a query, they have been encouraged to contact the firm online. It said customer services are currently being managed via online forms.

Aegon chief distribution officer Ronnie Taylor said: "Following the prime minister's announcement on Monday placing restrictions on all but essential movement, we have taken the decision to close our offices and move all staff to work from home.

"All online services are operating normally and we're dealing with enquiries and transaction instructions submitted online but for a limited period we are unable to accept inbound telephone calls to our contact centres."

He added: "We have been planning for this situation and are prepared to respond to the challenges this new way of operating brings.  People may have to wait a little longer for a response but our first priority is to the wellbeing of employees and implementation of the government measures designed to limit the spread of the virus."

Taylor said also Aegon was committed to providing the "best possible service" throughout this period and will provide customers with regular updates on any change in its approach.

After re-platforming Cofunds users to its new platform in 2018, Aegon faced some teething issues, which included problems with its phone lines. At the time, advisers reported delays with the platform's contact centre with some complaining about having to wait for longer than 30 minutes before getting through.

Then, in a letter signed by Aegon Digital Solutions managing director Mark Till, the firm said it was "fully focused" on ensuring it improved service levels and made a promise to add new phone lines to its offices, offering its "sincere apologies" to its customers. 

HL service cuts

Meanwhile, Hargreaves Lansdown has made several cuts to its services that will come into effect from 5pm Friday (27 March).

In an email sent by Hargreaves chief executive officer Mark Hill to its customers, seen by Professional Adviser, the services to be cut include submitting any phased investing instructions by telephone or post and making any new regular savings application via post.

Hargreaves' postal dealing service has also been completely suspended. Postal Bed and ISA services, which involves selling investments that are held outside an ISA and then using the proceeds to open or top up that ISA and Bed and SIPP (self-invested personal pension) services, and lets you top up your pension by using existing investments as SIPP contributions, were suspended on 20 March.

Other temporarily suspended services included fund and shared account applications received without payment, VCTs, any W-8BEN forms received by post and transferring share certificates into a fund and share account. However, transfers from other nominees to those accounts continue as normal.

Hill said these services would still be online and available via the app. A date for when the services would return back to normal was not specified in the email.

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