Communications and Engagement
Andy Davies - Independent Member
Standard Life continues to show a clear commitment to producing high quality and engaging communications to support customers.
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Value for money indicator
Why we gave this score
Standard Life continues to improve how they communicate with you. They show clear commitment to engaging with and supporting you in your journey to and through retirement.
We have seen evidence of continual research and development into how best to engage with customers across digital, telephony and paper channels. Standard Life have tested and further developed a number of their communications in 2024 as well as researching future approaches.
We scored them highly in 2023 and they have responded well to the challenges we set last year so have retained an excellent rating.
- Standard Life show commitment to producing high quality communications
- Redesigned many communications in 2024 to ensure they are speaking in a way customers understand
- Regularly use a variation of graphics and diagrams to breakdown complex information and ensure customers are engaged and clear on any action that they need to take
- Have a robust customer testing process ensuring communications are relevant and understood
- Research and feedback showed customers rated the quality of online and off-line communications highly
- Digital communications are strong, both via their website and their excellent mobile app
- The app is very highly rated and offers interactive information to keep customers informed and help decision making
- Standard Life’s digital functionality is very high and ahead of many peers
- The number of digital registrations is growing and is now over 49%, with 34% of customers frequently using the functionality, although we would like to even more customers see these
- Customer engagement is good. Standard Life also engage on wider relevant financial matters beyond pensions
- Increasing the number of customer email addresses held which is currently 51% of customers enabling digital communication (including 40% personal email address)
- Focused on keeping the number of customers who have ‘gone away’ without contact details low at 6.3% (up from 5% in 2023)
- Communication ‘open rates’ are high with very low levels of unsubscribes
- Nearly 45% of customers have engaged with Standard Life in 2024
Some additional information
Challenges
In order to improve the value for money that customers receive, we set specific challenges to address areas that could be improved. Below is an update on the challenges we set Standard Life for 2024:
- Fully met: Developed new communications for customers who have started taking benefits or left their employer but remain a customer of Standard Life with positive feedback received.
- Fully met: Developed new communications to customers approaching retirement age recognising that many now phase their retirement rather than a ‘hard stop’. Prompts are now issued to explain the implications and a ‘mixed income builder ’ tool has been launched
- Partially met: Usage of the Standard Life app and online dashboard has increased but customer registrations have remained static at 49%. We would like to see more customers using their excellent digital capability