Peer Intelligence | Summer 2022

By Hannah Blomfield

Thumbs up, thumbs down. Happy face, sad face. Five stars, no stars.  

The ‘language’ of customer feedback is no longer verbal but a series of images. We are all too familiar with leaving reviews for our favourite shopping sites and restaurants. But what about the service provided by pension funds to their members? Surely the results should count just as much for those hard workers who have made the long journey to retirement. And depending on the experience with a provider, members could be left leaving a glowing happy face or a less than desirable frown. 

New from CEM, Voice of the Customer (VoC) is a peer comparison service for the pensions industry that enables consistent measurement of member and employer engagement and satisfaction.  

The open-source Framework introduces customer effort and satisfaction questions for members and employers in relation to common pension administration activities. Participating administration teams can submit their feedback results to CEM’s peer comparison dashboard to help identify key areas for improvement and monitor the impact of subsequent changes they make.  

A key element of the VoC forum is the opportunity to share peer insights with other administrators on everything from ways to improve response rates to other questions that are included in surveys. In turn, these findings create a dynamic communication channel between peers which help administrators provide the best possible service to members. It is the only mechanism that peers can easily use to trade best practices, share common questions, and arrive at co-created solutions. 

CEM is proud that the Framework was developed by the pensions industry, for the pensions industry. 

The key principles underpinning the Framework are: 

• It should be simple, easy to implement and self-policing; 
• It should be applicable to all pension schemes and providers; and 
• Participants conduct their own surveys and therefore have control over how their members and employers are contacted. 

Facilitated by CEM, a group of eight administrators came together to find a common approach. Railpen and the Royal Mail Pension Plan provided private sector representation whilst Civil Service Pensions, Greater Manchester Pension Fund, Local Pensions Partnership Administration, NHS Pensions, the Pension Protection Fund, and the Universities Superannuation Scheme contributed a public sector viewpoint. 

The Framework and accompanying service are still in their infancy but developing rapidly. Although VoC is currently being implemented in the UK, the Framework has been developed with a global reach in mind to obtain a broad data set and range of experiences. 

For the remainder of 2022, CEM will periodically share how some of the participants are implementing the Framework, how they hope to use the results, and any lessons learnt.  

If you would like to learn more about how you can use member feedback to drive high quality service, please reach out to us or read more about the Framework.