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Survey of New Zealand Visa Applicants Who Have Used an Immigration Adviser 2011

Conducted for the Immigration Advisers Authority By Premium Research

In 2009 the Immigration Advisors Authority (the Authority) conducted a benchmark survey to assess immigration adviser performance from the perspective of their clients. This survey has been repeated annually at the same time each year to provide an up to date measure of the perception of adviser performance and to identify any change in perceptions over time.

The overall aim of the research is:

To provide measures of the performance of immigration advisers from the perspective of their clients to help measure the effects over time of the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007.

At the time of conducting the 2009 survey, New Zealand based advisers had been able to make a voluntary application for licensing for 12 months and compulsory licensing was about to be introduced for New Zealand based advisers. When the 2010 survey was conducted, licensing had been compulsory for New Zealand based advisers for 12 months and compulsory licensing for offshore advisers had just been introduced. At the time of conducting the 2011 survey, licensing had been compulsory for New Zealand based advisers for two years and over a year for offshore advisers.

The survey of visa applicants who used an adviser was undertaken using an online methodology. Applicants who had received advice from an immigration adviser in the period 4 May 2010 to 4 May 2011, with a personal email addresses on record, were invited to participate in this survey. The questionnaire was provided in English and Simplified Chinese. A total of 721 applicants completed a survey. This document gives a brief summary of the survey findings.

In both 2010 and 2011 around seven in ten clients had used a licensed adviser (68% in 2010 and 70% in 2011).

The survey of applicants who use advisers was undertaken using an online methodology.  Visa and permit applicants who had received advice from an immigration adviser in the period 4 May 2009 to 4 May 2010, with personal email addresses on record, were invited to participate in this survey. The questionnaire was provided in English and Simplified Chinese. A total of 1,115 applicants completed a survey. This document gives a brief summary of the survey findings.

Overall Satisfaction

Following relatively large increases in client satisfaction observed in the 2010 survey, compared to 2009, it was concluded that the progressive introduction of licensing did appear to have had a positive impact on clients’ perceptions of the service provided by advisers.  While satisfaction levels in this latest 2011 survey are largely unchanged from 2010, the results reinforce that licensing has indeed made a difference to the level of service provided.

Satisfaction with the overall quality of the service provided by advisers has remained stable at 75 satisfied (i.e. the total proportion of applicants giving a rating of 4 or 5 out of 5) the same result as in 2010.  Similar to 2010, around one in ten clients were dissatisfied with the service they received.

Adviser Performance

Applicants were asked to rate their adviser on the following areas: client service, communication, provision of information, timeliness, written agreements and cost. 

For most of the areas performance has been maintained at 2010 levels.  Performance has increased for two out of the 27 service attributes and has decreased for one:

As in previous years, only two attributes fell below the ideal target of at least 65 percent satisfied:

Performance has remained fairly even across licensed and exempt advisers, with just two service areas where licensed advisers received higher ratings than exempt advisers:

Exempt advisers were not rated higher than licensed advisers on any of the service aspects.

Recommend Adviser

Clients’ likelihood to recommend their adviser to friends or family has remained at a similar level to 2010 (79%) but does show an increasing trend over the past three surveys (up from 70% in 2009).

Positive Comments

Seventy-six percent of clients (77% licensed; 74% exempt) provided a positive comment when asked why they gave the satisfaction rating they did.  At the total sample level this result shows a positive increase over time (increasing from 62% in 2009 and from 73% in 2010).

The main reasons for being satisfied were similar to previous years:

Negative Comments

In line with the previous surveys, a total of 31 percent of clients (32% licensed; 29% exempt) gave a negative reason when asked why they gave the rating they did for their overall satisfaction.  The main reasons for being dissatisfied were similar to those stated in earlier surveys:

Service Improvement

All applicants were asked what the one thing advisers could do to improve their service was.  Clients’ main suggested improvements were similar to those suggested in 2009 and 2010:

Compliance

Among clients who used a licensed adviser, 67% received a copy of the code of conduct.  This result is similar to 2010 (64%) but still well above the 2009 result (40%).

Eighty percent of clients who used a licensed adviser and 46 percent who used an exempt adviser said they had received a written agreement.  The result for licensed advisers was the same as in 2010, but the exempt result is down significantly from 83 percent in 2010.

Finding an Adviser

As in previous years, the most common way to hear about an adviser was via friends or family (50% down from 58% in 2010), followed by the internet (17% up from 13%).  Use of the Authority’s register shows a small but steady increase over time (up from 4% in 2009 to 8% in this latest survey).

An executive summary of this survey is also available online.

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