How Plan Advisers Smooth Communications Between Providers, Clients

A growing part of retirement plan advisers’ work is helping different parties communicate. Recordkeepers and other providers are shifting toward self-service models, pushing more operational responsibility onto advisers, who then have to share provider needs and information.

Michael Sanders, a CAPTRUST retirement plan adviser, says some challenges come when recordkeepers use their own jargon in requests, while clients may need digestible, easily understood information on services, making advisers essential go-betweens.

“Lots of times, language is the barrier—the acronyms and things like that,” Sanders says. “Two recordkeepers are asking for the same thing differently, and that confuses the client.”

A ‘Central Hub’ Adviser

One way advisers can smooth out the confusion is by project planning, which Sanders defines as coordinating across multiple vendors. Clients can think of plan advisers as the “central hub,” mapping out timelines, anticipating potential breakdowns and ensuring each provider delivers what is needed, when it is needed.

“With any client that has multiple vendors, we think of it almost like a project coordination standpoint,” Sanders says. “You’re learning and preparing each quarter, each year, for what could go wrong.”

In addition, Sanders says advisers also need to be familiar with the tools adopted by recordkeepers, who are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence and automation. To effectively guide clients, Sanders says advisers must understand not only how these tools are marketed, but how they function, particularly when it comes to data usage and security.

“You have to be an expert at what the vendors are using, especially as it relates to data,” Sanders says. “How are you using it? How are you protecting client data?”

Even as advisers take on more coordination responsibilities, providers emphasize that roles within the ecosystem remain distinct.

Jared Porter, co-founder of retirement benefit platform 401Go, wrote in an email to PLANADVISER that recordkeepers should function as the central repository for plan data, covering participant records, compliance testing and reporting, while advisers remain focused on oversight, participant outcomes and fiduciary responsibility.

“The adviser is the advocate to the plan sponsor and to the health of the plan,” Porter wrote.

Looking ahead, advisers speaking a recent PLANADVISER webinar shared excitement about how technology could streamline complex processes.

“I think AI is going to be fantastic … In terms of all of the documentation. If we can reduce administrative process, … that’s a home run,” said Sean Bjork, president of Bjork Management, during the webinar. “I think it’s going to be amazingly powerful, especially with the ability to help with the proper guardrails [and] the ability to inform, support and educate the plan participant.”

Communication: A 2-Way Street

On a practical level, Sanders says advisers can improve communication by maintaining regular touchpoints, including calls, shared timelines and proactive onboarding when personnel changes occur.

“When there is turnover, getting all parties on the phone and walking through what’s in progress and what’s coming next is extremely helpful,” Sanders says.

In the recent webinar, advisers agreed on the need for greater communication and coordination with recordkeepers.

“[Having] one point of contact, knowing who they are, being able to pick up the phone and hammer out all your service-related things … is what makes [a recordkeeper] a strong partner,” Bjork said.

But increasingly, communication is shifting from person-to-person interactions to system-driven connectivity such as platforms, APIs and automated data-sharing systems. According to Porter, the most effective communication framework is one in which systems are directly integrated.

Porter wrote that systems should “communicate immediately and cleanly. The idea is for the infrastructure to be holistic, to limit how many interactions occur.”

For Porter, a unified infrastructure on a single platform is ideal because errors are most limited. Automated data transfers through an API are “next best,” while secure file transfer protocols are more at risk of delays. Email-based coordination has the greatest risk of incomplete or inaccurate information and is frequently a target for cybercrime.

“A [data] check that runs automatically every day beats an email chain between providers every time,” Porter said. “The best process isn’t a better way to juggle vendors. … It’s removing the handoffs that create the errors in the first place.”