Members not taking their pension aren’t necessarily ignoring you. Here's how to engage your most elusive members.
Picture this: you’ve got DB scheme members who are 75, 80, even 95 years old. They’re entitled to pension benefits, but they’re not taking them.
This is a headache for trustees and administrators. You want members to get the money they’ve earned. You know the death benefits are often more generous once pensions are in payment. But how do you engage people who seem uninterested?
Here are our 5 top tips.
1. Check what communications members actually receive
It’s easy to assume members are simply ignoring you. They must know what they’re entitled to, right?
Wrong.
We discovered this recently when working with a large DB scheme. They had a significant number of deferred members well past retirement age who had not taken their benefits. The scheme assumed these members were getting regular communications but choosing not to act.
The reality was different. The administrator had stopped writing to members after age 65. It wasn’t that members weren’t responding – they weren’t getting anything to respond to.
So, before you assume members are unengaged, check what they’re actually experiencing.
2. Show you understand members’ specific circumstances
It’s really important to make your approach personal, especially if you haven’t communicated in a while. Rather than sending generic messages, use specific details, such as dates of employment/scheme membership, that show you know their circumstances. This helps make the benefits real and tangible to them.
3. Address some common barriers
Check whether you’ve been clear that members can take their benefits and keep working. Some people will assume they can’t take them until they’ve given up work completely.
And when asked “did you know you can take your pension now?”, some people will assume you’re talking about the State Pension, rather than the benefits they built up with an employer. So, make sure it’s clear that you’re referring to your particular scheme. The more specific you can be about the benefits someone’s entitled to, the better.
4. Don’t pressurise or give a deadline
When you contact people who aren’t expecting to hear from you, to tell them there’s money waiting for them, some will suspect a scam. You need to take care to reassure members that your communication is legitimate.
It’s a good idea to add notices to your website and social media explaining that you’re contacting people about their benefits. If members see consistent messaging across your platforms, they’ll be more likely to trust that what you’re telling them is real and safe.
One of the top signs that a piece of financial communication is a scam is that it will put pressure on the recipient to respond immediately. Often scammers suggest that rewards or benefits will expire after a certain time. If you want members to trust your communications, make it clear they don’t have to rush to respond.
Allow them time to ask you for clarification and to make decisions. It can also help to offer to speak to them on the phone.
5. Remember that the phone experience matters, too
If you do invite members to call, these calls need to be genuinely helpful. You can spend weeks perfecting a letter. But if members call and get poor service, that becomes their lasting impression.
Hurried conversations with a target-driven call centre can undo all your careful communication work. So, consider whether your call centre targets align with good member outcomes. If agents are pressured to keep calls short, or if they don’t give clear, consistent answers, members won’t get the information they need to make a decision.
The biggest barrier might not be member apathy
When someone doesn’t take money they’re entitled to, there’s usually a good reason. Your job is to find out what that reason is, and remove it.
Sometimes you need to fix your own processes before you can fix the member experience. But get it right, and you might just turn your most “difficult” members into your most engaged ones.
