As commercial entities, some master trusts are leading the way in thinking about their members as customers.
This shift might seem subtle, but it’s changing how schemes communicate with members, support decision-making, and design retirement journeys.
What’s driving this change
The push to treat members like customers comes from several directions.
First, the Pensions Regulator has shifted its focus toward member outcomes, looking at how schemes help members throughout their pension journey, not just following rules.
Commercial realities also play a part. As people change jobs more often, master trusts face members leaving and rejoining. If you can build a good relationship with members, they might bring their pensions with them when they move.
And there’s a growing recognition that traditional pension communications don’t work. Treating members like customers means understanding their motivations, concerns, and lives beyond just their pension contributions.
What good looks like in practice
Leading master trusts now map ideal customer journeys, asking how a member should feel when joining a scheme and how they want members to feel at retirement.
Many schemes take this further with inclusive design by testing their products with real users, tracking user journeys and noting friction points. They recognise that around a quarter of their members may be vulnerable – either temporarily or permanently – and design services accordingly.
Some master trusts build brand stories from years of audience research, making members feel more connected to their pension – the same approach successful consumer brands use to create emotional connections.
The employer/member balancing act
Master trusts face an unusual challenge because their paying customers are employers, while their end users are scheme members. So the people that the master trusts are directly selling to are not the end users. They’re not the people retiring with a pension.
This can lead to products designed to appeal to employers rather than members, such as creating flashy tech features to impress HR directors – tech that members might rarely use in reality.
The waters get muddier as direct-to-customer options grow, with some master trusts now considering offering products directly to individuals. This would have huge implications for their business model.
In some ways, members are already effectively customers. In the world of people leaving jobs, coming back and deciding to consolidate their pots, or which provider to choose for their retirement product, members are directly choosing which provider to go with.
And where an SME is looking for a master trust for their workforce, the people making that decision may well also end up becoming members of the scheme – so they are choosing a pension provider for themselves (as well as for their colleagues). In that position, they will be subject to the same biases as customers in other situations.
What this means for member experience
The customer-focused approach means rethinking how we design member interactions at key moments in their pension journey.
Master trusts increasingly focus on creating clear communications that help members understand their options when joining, changing jobs, approaching retirement, or considering consolidation.
They’re also developing products that allow members to stay with the scheme after retirement, replacing the traditional “goodbye and good luck” approach with ongoing support and decumulation options.
This approach requires understanding that pension decisions are emotional as well as financial, especially when members need to make choices about their retirement income or respond to market fluctuations.
Rethinking the pension relationship
The shift toward treating members like customers isn’t just marketing. It recognises that pensions are about people, not just processes. A pension isn’t just a number in an account; it’s the thing that, after decades of contribution to society, means you won’t have to choose between heating and eating.
The most successful master trusts understand this by creating experiences that help members feel confident and supported, communicating in ways that reflect real lives, and building relationships that last from first contribution to final withdrawal.
