An introduction to personalisation
We live in a world where data rules. Forward thinking employers are using data as a key driver to improve their employees’ benefits experience through personalisation. With increasing numbers of sophisticated systems involved in managing your employee experience, from HRIS to pension management systems and benefits platforms, we’ve now got the ability to use the constant data flow every month.
Here are 6 clever ways to use the data you hold to provide a more personalised experience for your people, ‘nudging’ them towards products, services and content that is relevant to them at the most appropriate time.
Trigger points to send your communications
1. Age milestone reached
Simple data like a person’s age can be highly beneficial when it comes to driving engagement with rewards and benefits.
Age 25 – With the average age of a first time buyer now at 32 (Skipton’s) and typically taking 8 years to save for their first home (Nationwide), now could be a great time to promote a workplace ISA or advertise a financial wellbeing programme to help people save for the future.
10 years from selected retirement age – With only 10 years left to work, this presents the perfect opportunity to start helping people plan for their retirement by letting them know about any retirement advice offered.
2. Marriage and Civil Partnerships
A simple notification to them that they may want to review their beneficiary on their life assurance policy or add their partner to your Medical Insurance.
3. Return from maternity/paternity leave
As well as adding their children onto their Medical Insurance policy this is actually a great time to get people to engage with finances as starting a family is a trigger point when people consider their long term plans.
Some gentle nudges towards the right elements of your benefits programme, whether these are financial wellbeing and education, pension schemes or a workplace ISA is likely to be well received at this point.
4. Change of address
Like starting a family, buying a house is a key trigger to consider long term financial plans. However, there may be more immediate benefits to highlight too. Someone has moved to a new house, they may now be closer to the office which would be a good time to notify them about a cycle to work scheme.
This may also be a great time to let them know about an interest free season ticket loan scheme, helping them spread the cost of public travel between their new home and the workplace.
It always pays to understand the ‘add-ons’ that come with some of your core benefit schemes. One pension provider offers a 20% discount on home insurance if you are a member of one of their pension schemes.
5. Change in earnings
Most people run to quite a tight budget and so when their pay increases may be the only time it will work to prompt them to think about reviewing the amount they contribute into their workplace pension scheme. Automatic ‘save more tomorrow’ arrangements have been successful, in part by linking an annual increase in savings to pay change.
6. Fund milestone reached
Your pension provider or adviser should be able to identify when a person has reached a specific amount in their pension fund. Ideally a multiple of monthly pay to bring home the significant value that is being built up in employees’ pension funds. This is a great time to get in touch to ensure that they are on track to reach their financial goals for retirement or to get them to think about trickier topics like how their money is invested.
The 3 key ingredients to make personalisation work
Getting in touch with your people at the different milestones in their life can be extremely valuable. To make this work for your business you’ll need three key ingredients.
1. Data – Personalisation only works if you have high quality data. The good news is that across your various systems, there is access to high quality data every month now.
2. Technology – Once your data is in good shape, you’ll need to have a system in place that can store your data and then apply logic and rules to drive your communications.
3. Communication strategy – Last but by no means least, you need to have a well thought out communication strategy and plan. Your communications need to be engaging, look fantastic and written in language that appeals to the individual.