Customer Servicing
Rachel Haworth - Independent Member
Standard Life continues to offer customers a good level of service across telephone, postal and digital channels, with some specific areas for improvement.
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Value for money indicator
Why we gave this score
Standard Life offers you a comprehensive choice of channels through which you can service your pension; via post, telephone, online and app.
Customers who have rated their online and telephone experience continue to be very satisfied with the service and found it easy to do what they wanted to do.
The quality of Standard Life servicing remains high and complaint volumes remain low. This is in respect of both manual and automated processing.
Improvements were made in the year, although the challenges the IGC set Standard Life for 2024 were not fully met. They continue to have areas for development, particularly for customers moving into retirement, those wanting to take money out of their pension and for those dealing with a bereavement.
For these reasons the IGC has retained the same ‘Good’ rating as for 2024.
- Standard Life offers you a comprehensive digital, App and telephone service.
- 93% of transactions were completed within 10 days, although money out and retirement journeys were slower.
- Call answer times were slightly below target in Q4.
- 50% of bereavement claims completed over the 20 day target.
- Quality of customer service remained high throughout the year
- Acceptable Information Security strategy
- Treatment of vulnerable customers was strong
- Customer satisfaction for telephone and digital channels remains strong
- Complaint volumes remain low, but resolution times increased
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:
- Partially Met: Improved customer service standards for manual transactions, particularly on retirement and transfer out journeys. Unfortunately, while improved neither met the target of completing 90% within five days.
- Partially Met: Improved the bereavement process for customers. This, however, continues to be a challenging area for Standard Life with 50% completed within the 20 day target. We are pleased to see Management initiate a Bereavement project and hope to report more substantial improvements in 2025.
Challenges set for 2025:
- Improve customer service standards for manual transactions to target levels, particularly on retirement and money out journeys.
- Improve the Bereavement process so at least 55% are completed within the 20 day target.