Ryan Falkenberg, co-CEO, CLEVVA.

On 1 September, South Africa’s retirement savings landscape is set to undergo one of its biggest shake ups since the dawn of democracy 30 years ago. On that day, the two-pot retirement system will come into effect. Retirement product providers can expect a massive uptick in queries, with some expecting as many as 200 000 more calls per month.

In essence, the two-pot system aims to preserve retirement savings while allowing workers to draw a part of their savings in an emergency. It sounds simple, but it’s far more complicated than it looks on the surface, largely thanks to the fact that the system still needs to work within existing rules and regulations.

This means that some people will have greater constraints around how they can use the two-pot system, while others won’t be able to take advantage of it at all. An Allan Gray explainer on the system, for instance, points out that, “if you are a member of a provident fund, and you were a member of that fund and were 55 or older on 1 March 2021, you will be excluded from the two-pot system.”

As a result of those complications, retirement product providers are likely to be inundated with queries about the system. Customers will want to know how much they can withdraw, and how to do so, among other things. The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) has said there are 867 active retirement funds and it’s a safe bet that many aren’t equipped to deal with those queries.

Further complicating matters is that generic answers won’t typically work. The answer any customer gets will depend on their specific circumstances, and giving the right answer requires a high level of training and competence. A simple chatbot or set of Frequently Asked Questions on the website won’t cut it.

Providers therefore have three options. The first is to wait and see what happens. The expected volumes may not materialise and the distributed information may be sufficient. The risk is that the query volumes do come, and the resulting frustration experienced from long call waiting times may prove very damaging indeed.

Alternatively, providers can choose to contract a large number of temporary agents ahead of September. The number required is difficult to predict, and they may end up with too many or too few. Either way, these temporary agents will need to be trained to handle financial queries. The costs of this would be significant and pension fund providers have already said withdrawals will attract fees in a bid to recoup the administrative costs.

The third option is to deploy intelligent virtual agents to service queries 24/7. A virtual agent is a digital version of a human agent, capable of having human-like conversations via voice or text channels. They can effectively answer customer queries like a financial expert, in the context of each person’s situation. They can also work with business systems to ensure resulting actions get processed and customers get the outcomes they need without having to wait for a human agent.

Virtual agents are not chatbots or voicebots. They really can have conversations like people. As a result, huge volumes of engagements can be automated effectively, in line with business and regulatory rules.

Given the risk of getting the call volume predictions wrong, it makes the most sense to invest in a capability that can scale immediately with changing volumes, without negatively impacting customers. This takes the pressure off existing human agents and offers customers immediate support, no matter the channel.

With so many people anxious about what these new changes mean, providers should be looking to give customers the support and answers they need, without the inconvenience of long waiting times. Intelligent automation offers a way to do this, at a lower cost to all.