What DC Plan Sponsors Want: Education, and Some Personal Attention

Stability at the firm was also important, Bond said. "At least that nothing negative has been said about them in the press. That's very much a case of how name isn't the most important thing in world, but it is certainly high up there."

Less than critical but still extremely important, Bond said, were online tools and resources, participant education and fees, sponsor education, compliance assistance and having a range of investment options. "There were a number of other things in there, but those were the core things that they were talking to as being really important," Bond said."

She added, "The highlight that I took from this in terms of what sponsors are really looking for is that participant-education, participant-support piece and how that can really be a differentiator."

That's especially true of the smallest plans, Bond said. She said micro or small plans often want providers who can provide big-plan service and engagement, but that it's hard for them to find. "Some of the things that symbolize that [service] were the level of participant support people were getting. Coming into the office and offering to spend the day educating participants is one example of that."

In fact, Bond said, personal interaction was seen as something of a status symbol for smaller plans. "Having someone come out physically was a huge symbol of having attained that level of customer service."

Other criteria important to small and micro plans were having a single point of contact and having a full range of investment options available to them.

Large and mega plans had more sophisticated needs and larger teams, Bond said, but what really stood out was "the difference in the way they work with their participants and their relationship […] then impacted the way they work with the plan provider."

For example, she said, large and mega plans were more interested in retirement readiness. "They were much more in a position where they were talking about matches. They were talking about automatic plan features, wanting to implement auto-increase, auto-enrollment, those kinds of things. They were much further down the line with those."

By comparison, micro and small plans took a position of "'We'd love to, but we can't,'" Bond said. Some even said they weren't sure it was their place to have that conversation with plan participants. "They do want their plan providers to be having those conversations," she said. "I think they're a little bit skeptical about how far they think that's going to be effective. In the smaller [plan] end, they feel the best they can do is sit down and have a conversation or offer a conversation that comes by the plan provider with their participants and hope for the best."

Bond stressed the importance of participant education. "We describe it in the report as the closest thing to a silver bullet," she said. "It really opens the door to being able to have further conversations and expand the plan. It's becoming increasingly important to play a proactive role in provider and participant education; make as many resources available as possible and be there for them. As much as everyone wants online tools, [respondents] kept talking about wanting someone to come in and have face time with their participants and I think that won't go away any time soon."