Team Effort

Retirement plan advisers are focused on serving the needs of their plan sponsor clients, ensuring the sponsors are well-informed and following proper due diligence in the administration of their retirement plan. However, where can advisers get support in running their business? Alison Cooke Mintzer, Editor-in-Chief of PLANSPONSOR and PLANADVISER, had a chance to discuss how retirement plan providers and plan administrators focus on the needs of the adviser with Joe Frustaglio, National Sales Manager for Retirement Plans; Jeff Stein, Vice President of Retirement Plans Operations at Nationwide Financial; and third-party administrators (TPAs) Charles Rosenberg, Managing Partner, Intac Actuarial Services, and Earle Garvin, President of Pension Financial Services Inc.

PA: What are you seeing from the industry with regard to the sales of retirement plans?

Frustaglio: A recent study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) compared active defined contribution (DC) plans in force at the end of 2007 with those active at the end of 2011, and the numbers decreased by approximately 62,000 plans during those four years. A recent LIMRA study showed that the impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) on the 401(k) industry will play a negative role in sponsors and employees being able to invest more time and money into their retirement plans. Couple this with the fact that many sponsors reviewed and changed providers within the past two years, following the emergence of 408(b)(2) regulations, and you have a situation where there are fewer plans in the marketplace and those that remain have recently been reviewed, which leads to heavy competition.

PA: What are advisers saying about the importance of service?

Frustaglio: Advisers don’t differentiate between sales and service. They are basically buying your service proposition. Advisers desire and deserve constant contact and positive communication from providers, and that service also needs to extend to their sponsors and participants.

Stein: A Nationwide Financial research study points out two of the most important elements of service to advisers: responsiveness to them, then excellent service to their plan sponsor clients.

Rosenberg: Advisers will pay us to provide a flawless onboarding and continuous service experience for them. So if there are no hiccups as the plan goes live, they’ll rely on us and pay for a local third-party administrator to support that.

Garvin: It’s important that we keep the adviser in the loop. The adviser really needs to know when there are issues that come up, and to work—in a partnership—through the issues.

PA: How are you partnering with advisers to serve clients?

Stein: Our sales and service teams are aligned to support our advisers as they work to serve sponsors and participants. For example, as advisers go through the sales process for a new plan, we work as one coordinated Nationwide team each step of the way with our experts. Beginning with proposals and plan design, up to delivering legal documents and enrolling participants, we ensure that the sponsor and participants have a positive experience, and that the adviser is informed every step of the way. Our client relationship management tools provide our associates with adviser preferences on how they want to work with us, so we know how to service the unique needs of their customers. Our advisers and sponsors appreciate this personalized approach.

PA: How are providers working with TPAs to support these advisers?

Rosenberg: The first thing is, with the amount of business we all have in partnership with Nationwide, we are privileged to have a dedicated support staff in the home office supporting our firms. When there is an issue that gets brought to our attention, we’re able to work in partnership with Nationwide to resolve it. With increased use of technology, if there is an issue that is raised by the adviser or a client, we’re constantly in the loop. Some of the issues that are brought to light are compliance issues. When the adviser performs his plan review, we provide our input as to how we can remedy any of the compliance deficiencies and put the plan on target with its intended objectives by providing that input into the reports that are delivered to the clients: census information, testing information, etc. We look like one seamless unit, between the use of technology and the use of dedicated account managers.

PA: What is Nationwide doing to help ensure seamless transition from the case sale through ongoing service deliverables?

Frustaglio: We want to have all parties involved in supporting the plan sponsor. This includes the adviser, the TPA and Nationwide working together to deliver an “On Your Side” experience for the sponsor. We communicate with the adviser along the way, making certain they are looped in on all communication, and also feel supported and thankful for trusting us with their client.

Stein: Our teams work to ensure there is a new business implementation manager working directly with our advisers and administrator partners to onboard new plans. In late 2013, we launched a new customer relationship management (CRM) information tool that is used by everyone involved in the sale, setup, new business implementation and ongoing servicing. This provides detailed information to prepare anyone who needs to know what is happening with a plan, and it gives them the ability to have knowledge to deliver the requested service. As we transition plans to ongoing service, the implementation manager takes ownership to ensure a smooth transition to the plan administrator.

PA: What are you doing differently this year?

Stein: With the deployment of new internal tools, we have streamlined many internal work processes that result in more rapid turnaround times and personalized service experiences. We have increased our investment in technical training to ensure our associates are fully prepared to provide “On Your Side” service with every interaction. We take customer satisfaction seriously, which is why we hire a third party to measure it quarterly throughout the year. We’ve shown improvement over the past three years, and we’re focused on continuing that momentum into the future.

PA: What are you doing to support plan sponsors in their enrollment education after the sale? What tools are available for their use?

Frustaglio: We have 23 field service reps to help sponsors and participants with training and education. Approximately 40% of this team is bilingual. Our new education modules and enrollment materials are geared to help people who are at different points in their retirement plan lifecycle. We’re also spending time understanding the Millennials and how they would like to interact with us. Our use of iPads at enrollments is increasing, and we see that growing to other smart devices.

One of our most successful tools is our On Your Side Interactive Retirement Planner. It is an online gap analysis tool that captures assets within the plan as well as assets outside the plan, to demonstrate a very accurate retirement readiness monthly income stream. We have received fantastic feedback on that tool.

Garvin: One of the things we’ve done to try and help plan sponsors is take a different role in the administration. We’re taking on significant responsibilities, managing the enrollment process, making sure the plan is offered to the proper eligible participants, making sure that the communications get to the participants, whether through email or hardcopy, providing those services to make sure that the plan sponsor is doing the right thing.

PA: How are you able to help ensure advisers are up to date on these industry trends?

Stein: We’re leveraging the research conducted by the Nationwide Financial Retirement Institute around the impact of health care costs in retirement, long-term care, Social Security and the Affordable Care Act. Material from that research is made available through our tools online so that participants are able to make better-informed decisions.

Frustaglio: Nationwide is very adviser-focused, and we believe that the adviser is the catalyst to lead our nation through the savings crisis. It’s our responsibility to provide our adviser partners with the support they need to help interact with their clients.

PA: What would you recommend advisers do at this time of year to prepare for the fall season?

Frustaglio: We have seen successful advisers make contact with their clients in the summer months, to make sure that they share what they’ve done year-to-date with their participants. So, when the calls start happening in early fall from outside advisers, the client feels really good about what has taken place this year. If somebody makes a call and the plan sponsor hasn’t seen or heard from the adviser for a while, it opens up a situation where somebody may be able to get in.

It’s a good time to review your service plan with your plan sponsor, ask if they have any questions, and make sure that you’re doing everything in your power during the summer months to make sure that you set yourself up for success in the fall.