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Blog With communication forming such a key part of pension management, let’s fully explore what it entails, what makes for good comms, and how the right tools and approach can make it sustainable.
What is pension member communication?
Pension member communication covers everything a scheme does to keep its members informed, supported, and connected to their pension. It is the line of communication between trustees and pension administrators running the scheme and the members at the heart of it. Good member communications keep people informed and help them to understand their options and the rules governing their pension. Effective communication is essential to help members navigate their pension options.
With the right approach, members can feel like they understand what they have and how their pensions can support their retirement plans. They will be able to make better decisions, with confidence and without feeling overwhelmed.
What does good member communication actually involve?
When firms engage members via communications, a basic standard must be met. These are important conversations, and so they need to be made as accessible as possible for everyone. Due to this, it is wise to consider the following when constructing membership communications:
Write in plain English
By their very nature, DB pension communications can be rather complicated and difficult to interpret. Members may not have a good technical grasp of what they are entitled to in their scheme, and they won’t keep reading past the first paragraph if they don’t immediately understand it.
The challenge for administrators is translating it into language that members with no pensions background can act on, providing clear communications that minimise jargon and speak in plain English. While in-house conversations can remain on a high, technical level, they must be simplified when speaking to customers.
Communicate timely
Members will appreciate timely communications. Pensions often require their members to make informed decisions. For DB scheme members approaching retirement in particular, timely communication can make a meaningful difference – ensuring they understand their options with enough time to consider them properly, rather than feeling rushed into decisions that will affect the rest of their retirement.
Signposting the right tools at the right moment matters too. Calculators, dashboards, and self-service resources are only useful if members know they exist and are prompted to use them when they’re most relevant.
Tailor communications
All communications need to be tailored to their audience. A DB scheme can have an enormously varied membership – deferred members with decades until retirement, active members approaching it, and pensioners already drawing their benefits. The right message for one group might be completely inadequate for another.
For example, members who are still in work will require different communications to those who have retired and are drawing on their pension. By tailoring messaging to the right audiences to reflect where they are on their journey, makes it far more likely that those communications will actually land and those audiences will feel confident and well-supported in return.
Collect feedback
Pension schemes cannot just send out communications with no idea as to how effective they are. Delivery metrics such as open rates and click-throughs can tell pension administrators how their communications are being received and interacted with. They don’t tell you whether it was understood.
Collecting regular feedback such as direct feedback or surveys on what members think of the communication is key. This will also help to provide evidence of customer care as part of regulatory or compliance scrutiny. The goal should always be to improve upon the level of communications currently delivered.
What should be communicated?
Member communications can be incredibly varied, as there is a wide variety of information that needs to be conveyed. Some of the most common communications will include:
- Annual pension statements
- Responses or clarifications to questions and requests
- Updates about changes to the scheme and how it may affect them
- Information about how to access funds in retirement as that milestone draws near
By communicating regularly and with clarity, schemes can ensure that members have all the information they need to effectively manage their pensions.
Defined Benefit (DB) vs Defined Contribution (DC) pension communications – why the difference matters
A great example of why communications need to be varied comes in the differences between defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution (DC) pensions. Since these pensions are structured differently, their respective members need to be informed of differing information and options.
Communication for DB pensions will focus more on clarity and reassurance. The scheme promises a defined outcome, so less decision-making is required. Members will not need a deep financial understanding, as risk mostly sits with the employer and scheme. Good communications will focus on making the scheme rules easy to understand for all, when members can access their funds, and what options are available to them at retirement.
Conversely, communication for DC pensions will be more guidance-led. Outcomes here are much more uncertain, so communications need to help individuals understand their options, simplify complexity, and encourage action. Comms may need to explain more technical topics, such as investment or longevity risk or the impact of inflation, and so need to be comfortable simplifying these topics without losing any of their significance.
What do effective member communications look like?
Regardless of their target audience, most member communications should follow the same principles. Communication is not just a single action but an entire strategy within a scheme, and effectiveness may be carried by:
Purpose
No message should be arriving in a member’s inbox simply because they haven’t had one in a while. Ideally, admins should be following a tailored communication strategy, whether they send a planned message or need an ad-hoc one to explain something new.
Length
Sending too long a communication risks disengaging your members. More often than not, they will not want to sit through a long newsletter or update video. Initial contact should be short and snappy. If you do need to pass on details or significant information, attach it to the communication, direct members to supplementary resources on their portal or website, or ask them to reach out directly.
Channels
Consider the channels available to you. Are you leveraging them correctly to ensure that messages are heading to every member? Modern pension schemes may use email, text, social media, or even pension app push notifications to pass on communications. Offering a wide variety of options to members allows them to control their incoming messages in a way that best suits them.
Clarity
As pensions get more and more complex, members equally need to be able to maintain a good working knowledge of how their money is being invested and what they can claim at each stage. This requires input and support from pension providers, and this task of clarification often falls to admins. Too many schemes still measure success by delivery, not understanding. Sending a compliant communication is not the same as ensuring it’s understood.
Proactive
Pension communications should ideally be proactive, not reactive. As members gain access to their pension dashboards and further understanding of how their money is working, meet them halfway with resources to answer their questions as they have them. A reactive approach may be needed in an emergency, but a proactive one can cover most enquiries the average member may have.
How technology supports better member communication
For administrators working on large or complex DB schemes, delivering consistent, high-quality member communications manually is increasingly difficult to sustain. The volume of members, the variety of communication types, and the need to tailor messaging to different audiences all create pressure that good intentions alone can’t solve.
Technology plays a significant role in making this manageable. Pension admins need to have the right tools on their side when it comes to delivering effective communications. As pensions grow more and more complex, manual work is becoming inefficient and time-consuming. Leveraging the right platforms and technology helps to ensure that communications can remain at a high standard while simultaneously relieving some of the burden placed on administrators, allowing them to focus their time and energy on more important tasks.
Mantle transforms pension management by bringing all aspects together into one unified platform—including member engagement and communications. Teams can construct and perfect their communication strategy within the platform and then send it directly to the customer via their preferred method, whether this is in the app, via text, or through an email newsletter.
Start a conversation with us today to find out more about how Mantle can support both your approach to member communication and your wider pension management strategy.
