Peer Intelligence | Winter 2023

By Edsart Heuberger

In 2023, we will refresh the Pension Administration service model. We strive to provide you with deeper insights, re-align our service metrics & weights with how you see the world, and reduce your workload. 

It has been eight years since our last material service model update and we are ready for a refresh. We’ve opted to keep our methodology consistent, so you can monitor your service improvement over time.

The main reason for the refresh is the rise of digital. Consider that two of the last eight years were spent in a pandemic, which has rapidly accelerated digital adoption and transformation. In all service industries, digital and self-service has become the channel of choice.

We now believe digital-first service is the highest service for most transactions and members. At the last CEM Global PABS Conference, we polled our audience of 131 people who represented 60 pension plans about our belief and the room unanimously agreed.

Our current service model calculates a total service score, out of 100, based on scores for fifteen service activities, or modules. Collectively, these modules consist of 130 individual metrics and require us to ask nearly 300 survey questions.

Figure 1. CEM service model building blocks

Practically, what changes can you expect to the model? In your next reports, we will:

• Increase the weights for digital service modules;
• Add metrics on self-service and proactive member outreach;
• Remove immaterial or irrelevant metrics;
• Reorganize metrics by member journey and channels.

We will also use this opportunity to simplify our survey by removing service questions that have lost their relevancy.

To help you manage the transition we will:

• Run the new service model in parallel with the old model for at least one year. We will continue to provide support for the old service model, provide your service score in both models, and
• Refresh the service model gradually. Going forward, we will update the service model every three years.

We invite you to join one of our webinars where we will discuss the changes in greater detail, explain how we will launch the new service model, and identify areas where we seek your advice on how to objectively compare you to your peers. If you participate in the pension administration benchmark, you will receive an invitation to join the webinar. If you don't participate but are interested nonetheless, or have any other feedback, please contact us. These are the dates:

• The first webinar is scheduled for Thursday, February 9, 2023, at 1:00 p.m. EST.
• The second webinar is scheduled for Tuesday, February 14, 2023, at 1:00 p.m. EST.