Fidelity International has collaborated with Redington and Quietroom on a project to help maximise engagement among its workplace pension members.
Last year Redington and Quietroom formed a strategic partnership which would allow clients to access expertise from the two specialists via a single, integrated proposition.
Fidelity International appointed the firms to undertake an independent review of member communications sent by Fidelity and four other leading workplace pension providers. Quietroom used their expertise and experience to benchmark the communications against each other and their knowledge of communications in the wider market. The aim of the project was to identify areas of strength and opportunities to drive improved engagement and better outcomes for end-customers.
Bringing Redington’s pensions and investment consultancy together with Quietroom’s communications expertise, the exercise consisted of five core parts:
- Identifying the key member communications that should be reviewed and benchmarked
- Agreeing a methodology for scoring the communications and a format for displaying the results
- Reviewing the communications and applying the methodology
- Presenting the scores to Fidelity and the other providers to show their relative areas of strength
- Sharing examples of best practice amongst the providers and across the industry, as well as areas where improvement is needed
The long-term vision for the project includes welcoming other pension providers as equal partners with Fidelity to find new ways of benchmarking communications and member outcomes to drive up standards across the industry. Plans for a second iteration of this project have now begun.
Dan Smith, Head of Workplace Investing Distribution at Fidelity International, commented: “Continually reviewing and improving member communications is of the utmost importance in delivering an exceptional member experience and, as a result of this work, we have been able to identify several opportunities to improve members’ understanding and decision-making ability. This means we can give our clients absolute certainty that we are delivering maximum benefit to both them and their pension members.”
Russell Wright, Senior Vice President in Redington’s Defined Contribution consulting team, commented: “We know improving investment performance is only one part of the puzzle when it comes to helping people achieve a secure financial future. The more people understand their pension and feel positive about retirement saving, the better, so driving up standards in member communications is something we feel strongly about. This project is a prime example of how pooling our workplace pensions knowledge with Quietroom’s communications know-how can help pension providers continually improve what they offer members.”
Simon Grover, Director at Quietroom, commented: “Creating a methodology for assessing and scoring the member communications from a suite of different providers has been a fascinating challenge for us. I’m grateful to Fidelity for having faith in Redington and Quietroom to come up with the goods on this new way of looking at this area. The results were very revealing and will help us move closer to what we’re all trying to achieve, namely better member outcomes.”
