Peer Intelligence | Spring 2023

By James West

I would like to welcome everyone to my first appearance on Voice of the Customer. I am a long way from being able to say I am the most experienced staff at CEM, but before joining, I was a long-time CEM client. I’ve spent over 25 years in pension administration with the member experience always being near and dear to my heart.

I careened into this industry via the call centre chatting with members, explored the data side and dealt with Employers, tightrope walked through technology initiatives, and played a key role in developing and executing a survey program. And now, I’m ready for my second act and even for my third act. Third? I am not only a member of the Pension Administration crew here at CEM. I’m a plan member as well. I know how it feels.

As I stare at 60 — and though I have decided to remain active and continue to work — my forever retirement income rests in the hands of people like you. How can I help pension plans better serve their members? It’s thrilling and that motivates me. I want to help.

I am excited to take the lead on this initiative that over time will be delving deeper into understanding how your members and employers experience your services vis-a-vis your peers. At the time of authoring this article, we are just a few weeks away from receiving our second quarterly set of data from our beta clients (and we can confirm that two new clients have joined Voice of the Customer!). The journey is only just beginning.

This quarter will be a busy one as we move forward on a global level with VoC. We are looking at building a Global advisory board to complement our UK advisory board. We will also determine the preferred survey rating scale. This subscription offering is free until we hit a critical mass.

With the rest of the team here at CEM, we are creating a tool — and a forum — that will provide you with valuable data and insights that you can use in discussions and for decision-making at your organization. We hope to bring leading industry experts to VoC forums so we all can gain insights for the benefit of members. And more importantly, we will continue sharing the learning from peers, the piece I valued most as a former client. If we work together, we can do better. Stay tuned as this exciting new initiative grows. The Vancouver conference is just around the corner and I’m looking forward to meeting many of you in person there. See you soon!

P.S. Have your organization implemented any kind of customer feedback program? If so, I would like to hear about your experience. You can share your thoughts by sending me an email at james@cembenchmarking.com or filling out this form on our website. To get more information about our VoC framework, download a copy of it here.