Any other business: On July 26, members of the Teachers’ Pensions Scheme were informed via Facebook that their service was experiencing disruption. Later that day, they were told that access had been restored. Some members disagreed.
“Tried logging in the morning 28/7/18. Get invalid password error. I think you still have an IT issue!” wrote Alan Keen in the Facebook page’s comments section. Many were less restrained in their criticism of the scheme’s service.
Member engagement is a topic discussed at most conferences, yet there are apparently few schemes using social media to communicate with their members.
If you’re not comfortable with using it, don’t use it
Banafsheh Ghafoori, Likeminds
The brave few who have made the leap onto Facebook and Twitter may now regret it. The pages of Capita-administered Teachers’ Pensions, and the embattled mastertrust Now Pensions, both play host to a litany of anger and derision from their members. Both schemes have been dogged by administrative problems.
A Capita spokesperson said: “On July 26 responses to queries regarding password or pin resets were temporarily unavailable.”
“We shared this update with members via our contact centre, website and Facebook page so they were made aware, and the matter was swiftly resolved,” the spokesperson added.
Is it safer for schemes to steer clear of social media? Or should more pension plans give social platforms a go? If so, what is the right way to engage with your members online?
Talk to your members
When using social media, schemes must deliver personalised responses to their members, according to Banafsheh Ghafoori, senior communications consultant at Likeminds.
“People just want to be acknowledged,” she said, adding that schemes need to set a strategy and “boundaries” for their social media output. “If you’re not comfortable with using it, don’t use it,” Ghafoori said.
In Simon Grover’s experience, scheme use of social media is “very rare,” although “trustees often ask about it”.
A lead writer at communications consultancy Quietroom, he advised schemes considering social media to first identify where members are commenting on their pension.
“Trustees are getting quite good at saying, ‘How do members want to hear from us?’”, he said, adding that they are weaker at asking, “‘Where are members talking already, and how can we join in those conversations?’”.
The Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme, which has also experienced administrative difficulties, operates a Facebook page for communicating with members. 539 people follow the page.
The scheme’s members also run their own Facebook group, called ‘the UK miners pension scheme, for justice & fair play association’.
The group currently has 10,256 members, and it has been used to discuss a range of issues, such as erroneous notices received by members from HM Revenue & Customs earlier this year, which told them that they owed thousands of pounds in tax.
Be proactive with social media
Now Pensions has experienced delays when processing pension contributions, which has resulted in some member accounts not showing up-to-date fund values. It was fined £70k by the Pensions Regulator in February.
A spokesperson for Now Pensions said: “We acknowledge that we’ve fallen short of the standard of service we aim to provide for members and putting this right is a top priority for us.”
The mastertrust uses Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube to communicate with its members.
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“Although we have a presence on Facebook, it is not a channel we are currently using proactively, we use it more for listening,” the spokesperson said, adding that: “Our primary social media channel for engagement with members at the moment is via our Twitter account.”
Karen Bolan, head of engagement at communications specialist AHC, cautioned against schemes allowing Facebook to lapse into becoming a “listening device”.
This “runs the risk of that listening device actually becoming quite a vocal system that the members use against them”, she said.
