Highlights from the DC Plan Participant and Plan Sponsor Experience Benchmarks
The DC Plan Participant Experience Benchmark and the Plan Sponsor Experience Benchmark are annual retirement competitive benchmarking studies that evaluate the website platforms for retirement plan participants and plan sponsors, respectively. Using data from CI’s survey of participant and sponsors, the benchmarks grade firms across several key categories—like Account Information for DC Plan Participants—offering a high-level performance overview and a granular assessment across a multitude of subcategories and attributes.
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Recordkeepers increasingly leverage virtual assistants to bolster the self-service experience and serve as a navigational aid
Virtual assistants (VAs) are increasingly becoming a valuable resource within the digital experience, though fewer than half of the firms in the plan participant study offer VAs. (Virtual assistants are a subcategory evaluated under the broader Support category.) Firms that employ universally available VAs can offer immediate aid to participants without requiring them to relocate to a dedicated hub or hunt for relevant help content scattered across the site. We enhanced our evaluation of VAs in the Support category for the 2024 DC Plan Participant Experience Benchmark to reflect the growing popularity and expanded functionality of virtual assistants across the coverage set. For example, Alight’s score increase from 2023 to 2024 is partially due to the firm’s VA, propelling Alight to become a leader in the Support category. Similarly, both Empower and Fidelity experienced grade boosts due to their VA tools.
Multiple firms in the coverage set position the VA as a navigational aid, offering valuable directions or quick links to facilitate site navigation and guide participants to relevant resources. VA tools also function as important intermediaries between participants and customer service contact resources, with multiple firms integrating live chat functionality within the VA interface that allows participants to easily connect with a service representative. Fidelity, Vanguard, Empower, Alight, Voya and Nationwide currently provide universal VAs that can address questions of varying levels of complexity, with Merrill presenting a mobile-only VA and TIAA offering a VA that specializes in loan and withdrawal support. For example, Fidelity’s VA—which is presented within an embedded window on the Contact Us page—excels at providing account-specific data and helping participants navigate the site’s impressive range of educational resources.
A handful of firms—like Voya—take this one step further, allowing participants to manage their contribution rate directly from the VA interface. Integrating transactional capabilities within the VA not only streamlines the account management experience but can also help firms maintain findability of key site actions when rolling out design and navigational changes. For example, Voya made substantial changes to its homepage and dashboard experience in 2024. The firm currently hosts personal finance management tools, account aggregation features, profile management and live event content on the revamped homepage experience but requires participants to navigate to previous homepage experience to conduct any transactions, including contribution management. By offering contribution management through the VA, Voya ensures that participants can still quickly review and modify their contribution rate.
Leaders in Plan Health offer robust functionality, customization and tailored recommendations, but recent changes forecast the increasing value of design enhancements
Within the Plan Heath subcategory—part of the Plan Information category—leading firms earn top marks for plan health tools with an expansive range of data, intuitive visualizations, customizable filters and tailored recommendations. Benchmarking data and the analysis of KPIs, too, are highly valuable for plan sponsors. Firms are graded across three attributes—Plan Health Data, Analytical Features and Benchmarking Capabilities—as well as evaluated on the plan health findability and usability journeys.
Voya is the only firm in the coverage set to land in the Leading tier for the Plan Information category, earning first place for offering a comprehensive suite of plan details and substantial benchmarking capabilities. The firm’s user-friendly plan health tool incorporates a diverse range of metrics and a dedicated Benchmarks & Trends tab that captures plan-level patterns and offers comparisons across multiple benchmark groups. Intuitive data visualizations that dynamically update as sponsors modify variables, as well as by clear legends and in-depth tooltips, contribute to the firm’s strong performance in this category.
While Fidelity scores lower than Voya—earning a score of 76 in the Achieving tier—the firm’s Executive Insights experience stands out amongst competitors for having one of the most robust selections of data and analytical tools in the coverage set. The tool features 11 tabs that each focus on a specific data theme, as well as a universal sidebar that houses expansive filter options with customizable benchmarking options, allowing sponsors to specify details like population range and asset amount. The tool also offers several tabs dedicated to engagement metrics, including details on planning tool engagement rates, channels and correlated actions.
Recent design overhauls to firms’ plan health tools—such as T. Rowe Price and TIAA’s new plan health dashboards—suggest that as firms continue to modernize the sponsor experience, the usability and design of these tools may hold greater weight in evaluating the plan sponsor experience. These tools offer sponsors quick snapshots into plan performance without running more cumbersome reports.
T. Rowe Price and TIAA both substantially improved the overall experience of their plan health tools with enhanced usability and a fresh, distinctly modern feel to the sponsor site. T. Rowe Price’s revamped tool presents plan data within a polished, visually appealing format that allows sponsors to pin any tile to a dedicated Favorites tab within the tool experience. The firm organizes functionality and data across seven key tab and employs subtabs and section headers to further segment information, improving the overall usability of the tool from the previous iteration.
TIAA’s SmartPlan offers fewer complex analytics and data points than competitors, but the tool’s sleek design and emphasis on addressing participant behaviors and driving outcomes may serve sponsors seeking more action-oriented tools. The Key Behaviors to Improve section spotlights behavioral trends by identifying participants who require additional support and classifying them into three core groups: Saving (includes those who should increase their savings rates), Managing (covers participants with improper risk levels) and Protecting (includes those who are not invested in guaranteed assets). To compliment this feature, the SmartPlan tool also allows sponsors to directly email engagement materials to participants from the tool itself, allowing sponsors to quickly identify and then address performance issues.
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