Service Improvement - defining what's required

an outsourced client with 10,000 DB and 25,000 DC members 

Our client had been suffering from poor TPA performance for a number of years. Given that they wanted a single provider for DB & DC, and were firmly wedded to remaining Trust based, their options in the market were limited.

We applied our standard ‘toolkit’ to help identify what was really important to the Sponsor and Trustee, including the efficient and accurate processing of DC contributions and records.

These requirements were then tested with a number of providers, and a service summary created that included the following areas:

Tracing members 

Online benefit statement

Member comms

Automation

Online services 

Data quality

Member experience

Integration with flex

These aspects were all in addition to the normal service standards you would expect to receive from a TPA. We were able to define these in such a way that the new TPA understood the exact requirements of the administration service required, and therefore priced and resourced accordingly.  Likewise, the client had full visibility of the service being offered and confidence in the new provider to deliver.

This demonstrates our ability to define, in granular detail, a TPA service, in such a way that all parties became comfortable that provision of both DB and DC services would fully include all a client’s requirements around quantity/quality/risk measures.