Best & Worst Retirement Plan Digital Providers: J.D. Power, 2023

Americans are increasingly monitoring their retirement accounts on mobile apps, making satisfaction with these digital tools make-or-break for financial firms. While improved market performance has boosted overall satisfaction, according to the latest J.D. Power report, firms that want to differentiate themselves and increase customer satisfaction in both good and bad markets must do more on digital, especially with respect to mobile apps.

“The good news is that overall satisfaction with the retirement plan digital experience is up considerably this year, but when we compare those scores to similar customer-facing industries such as wealth management, property and casualty insurance and automotive, it’s clear that retirement plans still have a lot of opportunities to improve their digital offerings,” Craig Martin, global head of wealth and lending intelligence at J.D. Power, said in a statement.

Improved digital experiences are essential for strong financial performance, Martin said. “Participants who have a great digital experience vote with their dollars, with roughly double the amount of participants rolling in assets from other plans and more than triple the amount saying they will keep their money with their current provider if their job situation were to change.”

Top Digital Performers Garner More Satisfaction

J.D. Power’s research showed that overall satisfaction with retirement plan digital experiences increased to 685 (on a 1,000-point scale) this year, up 22 points from 2022. However, only 38% of retirement plan participants gave their plans high marks for digital capabilities.

Studies the firm conducted in 2022 and 2023 indicate that overall satisfaction lags significantly behind other industries in which J.D. Power conducts studies, such as wealth management, 701; property and casualty insurance, 702; and automotive, 718.

The research also found that retirement plan mobile apps show substantial increases in adoption and continue to drive higher levels of satisfaction when they are used. Forty-seven percent of participants have downloaded their retirement plan’s mobile app, up from 35% in 2021, and 38% have used the app in the past 30 days, up from 27% in 2021.

Overall satisfaction with retirement plan mobile apps was 728 — 38 points higher than for mobile websites and 72 points higher than for desktop websites.

Thirty-four percent of retirement plan participants who gave their provider the highest marks for their digital experience have rolled over money from other retirement accounts, according to the report. This compares with just 20% of clients who give their retirement plans poor ratings on their digital experience.

Likewise, the percentage of participants who said they “definitely will” keep assets with their current provider in the event of a job change is 48% among those giving their retirement plans the highest ratings for digital, compared with just 15% among those with low digital satisfaction.

“The digital playbook for retirement firms could not be any clearer,” said Jonathan Sundberg, director of digital solutions at J.D. Power. “Right now, a handful of standout firms are really delivering well when it comes to the mobile digital experience, but many more still have a great deal of work to do to get to the level of experience participants expect based on their interactions in other industries.”

See the charts for the digital providers with the highest and the lowest satisfaction among retirement plan investors.