The retirement plan industry loves dashboards. Every few years, there is another portal, another app, another reporting tool, and another piece of technology that is supposed to transform the plan sponsor experience. The problem is that many plan sponsors aren’t asking for another dashboard. They’re asking for someone to answer the phone.
Technology has its place. A good portal can save time. Clean reporting can make a sponsor’s life easier. Automated processes can reduce mistakes. But technology should support service, not replace it. Too many providers act as if adding another layer of technology somehow makes up for slow response times, poor follow-up, or an inability to solve basic problems.
I’ve dealt with plan sponsors who have access to beautiful websites filled with charts, reports, educational tools, participant data, and all sorts of bells and whistles. Yet when there is a payroll issue, a distribution problem, or a plan correction that actually matters, suddenly nobody knows who owns the problem.
That is where providers lose clients.
Plan sponsors don’t judge a provider solely by how impressive the technology looks during a sales presentation. They judge the provider by what happens when something goes wrong. Can they reach somebody? Does that person understand the issue? Does somebody take responsibility for getting it fixed?
The industry sometimes forgets that retirement plans are complicated enough already. Sponsors don’t necessarily want more features. They want fewer headaches.
Before a provider spends millions developing the next dashboard, maybe it should spend some of that money making sure its service team is properly staffed, trained, and empowered to solve problems.
A dashboard is a tool. It is not a relationship.
And no amount of technology will ever replace good service.