The Civil Service Pension Scheme plans to turn to Instagram and mobile technology to communicate with members as it recovers from the fallout of its administration transfer in September.
At that point, private/public sector joint venture MyCSP took over the administration of the pensions of 1.1m people, including 650,000 pensioners.
The shift led to unprecedented call volumes from scheme members, leading to delays for those trying to get through and frustration as the processing of certain benefits was slowed.
The scheme took a series of actions to deal with the communication challenge:
Extending its contact centre opening hours and having it open at the weekend;
Making use of its employer network to communicate with scheme members;
Using its website to update members on common issues with service updates, infographics and FAQs;
Prioritising callers using its interactive voice response system, which directed enquiries to the appropriate channel.
The issues affected payments for less than 0.5 per cent of its scheme members, and more than 90 per cent of those issues have now been cleared, the administrator said.
Virginia Burke, business development director at MyCSP, said: “Volumes are still high and we continue to plan new ways to communicate – such as Instagram and mobile technology – to provide members with the information they need and to reassure them that their cases are being processed.
“Good communication across a range of channels is key, particularly when dealing with such large volumes of members.”
Helplines can be a good sign of how well benefit changes have been received. Daniel Taylor, head of administration at third-party administrator Premier, said: “Easily the biggest indicator is the number of telephone queries that have been received.
“The first thing people do is they receive the communication, they perhaps don’t read it all [and] they pick up the phone.” He added that schemes need to have sufficient resources in place to prepare for a spike in enquiries.
The initial phone call often will not be a simple query on the change; members will use the opportunity to demand to know other information about their pension.
Service blackout
Administration transfers almost inevitably cause problems due to the ‘blackout’ between one service stopping and the new service beginning.
Ongoing projects such as transfer values and ill-health retirement applications were a challenge to pass from one administrator to the next.
“Most administrators try to do this [changeover] on the weekend so at least they are open for business on the Monday,” said Lorraine Harper, head of governance services at JLT Employee Benefits.
When it comes to communicating the administration change to members, timing is very important for passing on the details of the new administrator.
“[If] you tell them too early you get people ringing up and being terribly confused,” said Harper. “Use the opportunity to say that nothing is going to change, all of their benefits are going to be exactly the same. People just assume they are at risk of losing something.”
