Tools of Engagement

Retirement plan advisers may not always see eye to eye on all aspects of practice management, but a growing number is embracing technological resources that engage participants by way of visual appeal, real-life scenarios and videos.

Technology’s latest application across retirement plans now invites participant engagement and usage on a very personal level. “We’re getting people to visualize their retirement needs in a different way,” says Sean S. McLaughlin, senior vice president, client relations and business development, at Prudential Retirement in Hartford, Connecticut.

Voya Financial decided to create more engaging participant tools by making its offerings more visual, according to Chris Lange, the firm’s head of digital strategy for retirement solutions in Windsor, Connecticut. “Showing people their balance is not getting the point across,” she says. Voya’s myOrangeMoney^® website, for example, illustrates whether current assets will meet a future monthly income goal. Users can drill through a series of circumstance-based question screens, finding calculators and other tools sprinkled along the way.

“It’s a visual depiction of the future,” Lange says. Sliders—movable levers that show, for instance, possible changes and variations—let people learn about different financial topics while they play in a graphic and interactive way. “It is highly appealing to everyone—especially to women and Millennials, who expect online financial tools to be interesting and dynamic.”

Any population can be challenging if you are unsure what message to send, says Stig Nybo, president of pension sales and distribution at Transamerica Retirement Solutions in San Francisco. Still, he points out, participants in their 20s can be especially tough to reach.

“Young adult participants are complacent about the dangers of running short of retirement income,” Wells says, “because, for them, the golden years remain far off and are far less of a priority than bills they face now.”

Several strategies and techniques can engage this elusive demographic, starting with avoiding the very word “retirement.” Nybo’s advice: “Better to go with phrases such as ‘financial security’ and words such as ‘choice.’” Communicating through text messages, email and social media also works.

Playtime

Retirement-related games, sometimes called gamification techniques, can encourage participants to visit a provider’s website and use that resource more deeply. “Often, people check balances online, but they don’t take a lot of action,” says Andrew Yerre, a partner and defined benefit (DB) administration leader at Mercer in Norwood, Massachusetts. Mercer’s response to on-the-fly visits: Uncover the Numbers—an interactive website that uses quizzes to pique a visitor’s curiosity while delivering information about retirement planning and saving.

Uncover the Numbers spurs participants to consider changing investment options or to think about their post-retirement health care costs. “The game encourages people to take a more vested interest in their retirement well-being,” Yerre says.

Voya also created a game, Struct, to teach investing basics through an application (app) for smartphones and other mobile devices. Billed as “fast-paced action and an exciting way to boost your financial brain power,” the game directs players to “build increasingly complex structures out of steel, wood and glass. Use the right mix of materials, and you’ll be rewarded. But be careful—a wrong move could impact your strategy. Just like saving and investing, there are risks and rewards,” the instructions caution players.

People are naturally interested in how they measure up against peers. Voya leverages this curiosity in Compare Me, the company’s social comparison tool, which Lange calls “a real winner.”

“Over half of Americans would be motivated to save if they knew they were not measuring up to their peers,” she says. The tool shows individuals how they compare with others with similar financial backgrounds. According to Lange, “A case study of 28,000 participants found that when they first saw the comparisons, nearly two-thirds of the people, about 18,000, either increased their contribution or started over to make another comparison.”

Measurable Results

For plans without automatic enrollment, many advisers use iPads and similar devices at participant meetings, and based on the experience of Jay Wells, an adviser at Foresight Wealth Management in Sandy, Utah, the participant response to this is overwhelmingly positive. Enrollments soar, he says, and everyone enjoys taking action in an intuitive, easy and instantaneous way.

Wells says Foresight tried using iPods at a 401(k) enrollment meeting for 30 employees. “We were able to enroll someone within two minutes—and we [ended up with] 100% enrollment [there],” he says.

Voya asks participants to come to enrollment meetings with their smartphones and tablets, and even supplies the hardware to those without a device. Attendees can join the plan using Voya’s enrollment app. “The enrollment rate is 97%,” says Lange. The beauty of having an easy way to enroll participants at the meeting is that you catch them at the time when they are fully engaged, she says.

Roll ’Em!

For Jason Chepenik, managing principal of Chepenik Financial in Winter Park, Florida, retirement planning starts with a simple question: What does retirement look like to you? “If they can picture it, it helps me plan it for them,” says Chepenik, who has embarked on an ambitious project to get participants and principals in 25 firms to make short videos about their personal vision for retirement.

These videos run 60 to 90 seconds and depend heavily on the input and help of human resources (HR) personnel and principals in the company. Let whomever is most charismatic get in front of a camera, Chepenik says. He also plans a tech-themed contest to show the completed videos at group meetings: The maker of the video that gets the most enthusiastic response will win an iPad.

Perhaps most importantly, though, the videos could spark true participant accountability, action and, ultimately, positive results. Chepenik feels that once participants make the video, they feel responsible for taking the necessary steps to make their now-documented vision of retirement a reality. “It makes the point that it’s their plan—the plan sponsor’s and the participant’s,” he says.

Transamerica is in the early stages of testing what it terms “augmented reality,” in which an employee can scan a poster in his workplace, using a smartphone or other device, to launch a retirement-themed video. “A series of pictures comes to life with videos,” Nybo explains. “The app reads the picture, and the user holds up a device to launch the video.” Mobile devices bring the presentation directly to participants. “Plan sponsors are very excited about the possibilities around this different user-interface,” he says.

The days of bombarding participants with fund information—at least on paper—are over, Prudential’s McLaughlin says. Technology imparting “simple language, easy-to-understand concepts and a human approach to retirement saving drives better results,” he says.