Oak Pensions wants customers to ask pension questions through AI

A pension customer who wants to know how an RSA transfer works should not have to dig through a stack of documents to find the answer. Oak Pensions is betting that a chatbot can make those questions easier to deal with.

The Nigerian pension company is preparing to launch AskOakAI, a digital assistant that will answer questions about its pension products and services. The service is expected to cover Retirement Savings Accounts (RSA), Personal Pension Plans (PPP), voluntary contributions and the RSA Transfer Window. Customers will be able to type questions rather than work their way through pension terminology or look for the right information across different channels.

Not every question needs a phone call

A large part of customer support involves questions that are relatively straightforward. A contributor may want an explanation of a pension product, ask how voluntary contributions work or want information about transferring an RSA. Those questions can take a customer several minutes to find online or require an email or phone call.

AskOakAI is being built to provide another route. Oak Pensions says the service will sit alongside its existing customer support channels. It is not being introduced as a replacement for staff. That distinction is important because some pension problems cannot be solved by a chatbot. If a customer has an issue with their account, a payment or a transaction, someone may still need to check the customer's records and deal with the problem.

The challenge is getting the answers right

The attraction of a pension chatbot is speed, but speed is not much use if the answer is wrong. Pensions involve people's savings and long-term financial plans. Customers need information they can rely on, particularly when asking about transfers, contributions or the rules around their accounts. Oak Pensions will therefore need to keep the information behind AskOakAI up to date as its products and processes change.

The way customers ask questions will matter too. Someone might ask, “How do I move my pension?” rather than use the formal term “RSA Transfer Window”. The assistant needs to understand that both questions can refer to the same process.

There is a wider use case for financial businesses

Oak's move also points to a practical use for AI in financial services. Banks, insurers, lenders and other financial companies deal with large numbers of repetitive questions. Smaller businesses face the same problem, often without having a large customer service team.

A well managed chatbot could handle questions about documents, fees, applications, repayments or account processes while staff deal with cases that actually need human attention. But the technology is only part of it. The business still needs accurate information, clear processes and someone responsible for fixing problems when the automated answer is not enough. 

For Oak Pensions, AskOakAI will be tested on something customers will notice immediately: whether it can understand a simple pension question and give them a useful answer without sending them around in circles.