For every million records, we have found 130,000 incorrect addresses, 5,952 clients who have already passed away and about 4,000 customers who have an initial rather than a forename.
Before feeding into the dashboard, organisations can get their data cleansed and remove those records that are now out of date or incorrect.
The cleansing process uses accounts which are live today – from credit cards to mortgages – to understand where the people who once put away for their future are now.
The technique of establishing who someone is and providing them with an identification number is known as ‘pinning’. It will also ensure any future records also follow them around through changes in job, address and surname.
Work carried out by Experian DataLabs helps us analyse and process data at speed.
As an example, we can now analyse up to 12 months of bank statement data in under a second, categorising income and sub-categories of income, as well as committed and discretionary expenditure.
To produce the experience customers expect, super-size analytics capability is a must.
Investing for the future
The dashboard should be looked at as an opportunity for providers to re-engage people who have a passive attitude to their retirement savings. If they need any more motivation, it makes commercial sense for organisations to encourage people to put more money away.
However, the dashboard brings risk as well as reward. The natural reaction for many people when they see a handful of pensions on their screen is to want to consolidate them into one, which logically will be easier for them to keep track of.
Clearly there will be winners and losers as people move through this process.
We asked people if they were to consider moving a series of smaller pensions savings accounts into just one, what would inform their decision.
The most persuasive aspect was not the charges for the service or analysis of past performance, but instead on the recognition of the brand and the strength of their relationship. We heard: “I know them and trust them” more frequently than “they will make me the most money”.
The answer for the brands that face being consolidated against is to improve their customer relationships through digital engagement, helping customers to manage their overall finances better, not just their pensions.
If you can help consumers to create more financial headroom through improved management of their credit card debt, or find them a more economical energy tariff, then it shows an ongoing interest in their finances and creates a tangible value exchange that in turn builds trust.
If a provider is trusted with finances today, it stands to reason they will be retained for tomorrow’s decisions.
