With pensions such a crucial contributor to our sense of long-term financial security, and relationships with customers potentially spanning decades prior to withdrawal, PensionBee is constantly looking for new ways to connect with and support customers, share information, and assist them to stay informed and in control of their futures.
Although the company had used Salesforce push notifications for occasional contact via customers’ mobile devices, by automating their use these instant messages are now playing an increasingly important role in ensuring great service. Explained Product Manager, Ariane Marie: “We began by automating push notifications to prompt new customers to give us all the information we need to successfully onboard them, and then to keep them updated about their transfer journey, all hosted and precisely recorded within Salesforce.
“This was really successful, and we could see many other applications for push notifications, so in 2021 we began creating automated journeys, identifying every potential interaction with a customer, so that specific push notification events would be triggered and sent via Marketing Cloud.”
As well as helping to ensure that important processes are completed step-by-step and accurate information is captured first time, push notifications draw customers’ attention to positive events on their journey with PensionBee, such as news about the completion of their pension transfers and contributions, helping to cement the relationship and enhance customer satisfaction.
Within four months of the launch of automated push notifications, up to 35% of customers had opted-in to the system.
“This is giving them real-time information about what’s happening on their account,” said Marie. “Previously, we would have shared this information in an email, but today most people are much more connected to their mobile devices, rather than their email inboxes, and, as a result, we can see that they are much more engaged with push messages, than they are with emails.
“And they are acting on these messages too, responding quickly, providing the information we need, which is speeding up the processing of this information too. This is great for customers because things are happening quickly, and great for us too, because it’s faster and more efficient and we can be even more responsive, moving them along on their journey with us. Because response rates to push notifications are better than email, we don’t have to spend as much time following up on emails that go unanswered.”
Another advantage of push notifications over email is that they are succinct and not competing for visibility against hundreds of other email messages, many of no interest or relevance to the recipient. “When a message is short, clear, and positive, people are so much more likely to engage with it and respond to it,” said Business Improvement Manager, Nicolas Charon.
Added Marie: “It’s also empowered our marketing team to action new ideas and topics that we can quickly and efficiently build push notification campaigns around, safe in the knowledge that the technology and the database of events that makes it happen is all contained and maintained within Salesforce. And we’re certain that there are many other processes elsewhere in the business that can benefit from push notifications. Push is showing huge potential for growth and additional customer engagement, and we're looking forward to exploring new use cases for it!”
