Over half of Danish pension savers have had no contact with their pension provider in the past two years, research by EPSI Rating has found.

However, the research found that when pension companies contact their customers, their satisfaction with the company increases.

Its annual customer satisfaction survey of the Danish pension market found that 47 per cent of customers have been in contact with their pension company in the past two years, meaning that 53 per cent have not.

EPSI Rating Denmark country manager, Sophie Breum, said: "Pension companies are not blessed with frequent contact with customers, so they need to create relevance themselves. It's telling that as many as 36 per cent say they don't know if it's easy to access advice. It's simply not something customers feel able to assess (and that number is relatively stable across age groups).”

Breum added that proactivity is “increasing slightly”, and EPSI Rating has seen a trend in the satisfaction score increasing for customers who have been proactively contacted, while it is decreasing for those who have not.

“This confirms a trend we see across EPSI's studies: Danes expect relevant, proactive contact," Breum noted.

Increased proactivity and frequency of contact, however, lead to an expectation that companies should follow up on the contact, according to EPSI Ratings’ research. This is where it found another challenge, as 11 per cent of companies lack follow up, leading to an average customer satisfaction score of 45.5.

More broadly, pension companies were rated similarly to banks, rather than non-life insurance companies, for customer satisfaction.

"It's interesting that pension companies are more similar to banks than non-life insurance companies when we look at Danish customer satisfaction. Banks have had some scandals, but pension companies have not. They are more of a mysterious box
that customers don't fully understand - and that many haven't actively opted into," Breum said.

"There is no doubt that pension companies are important. But they are far from their customers and fail to communicate their products, benefits and services to customers in a way that is easy to understand. And again this year, we see that many companies are a little too far from their customers.”

The top three Danish pension companies for customer satisfaction were Industriens Pension, PensionDanmark and PFA. Industriens Pension has been ranked top for the third year in a row.

"Industriens Pension has the highest customer satisfaction in this year's survey - and is also at the top when it comes to trust in their own company and relevant proactivity. They are generally good at relationship-building activities, but we see a decline, especially in elements such as transparent terms and case processing time," Breum noted.

On PensionDanmark, Breum said the company is good at “making it easy to be a customer” while PFA customers are especially satisfied “when they advise on preventing illness and transition to senior life”.

Industriens Pension, CEO Laila Mortensen, said of her company’s placement: "Members' wishes and needs are at the centre of everything we do and work with, so it is really good to see that they are generally satisfied.”

She added that it is important that Industriens Pension does not “take anything for granted”.

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