RETIREMENT PLAN ADVISING Elevate your plan reviews: Ideas for any plan size

Annual reviews can be a powerful opportunity to strengthen plan sponsor relationships by reminding them why their plan adds value to their business and the value you deliver to the plan.

A 2025 Retirement Leadership Forum (RLF) survey* of next gen advisors found that retirement business is most often won by the financial professional’s service offering, and — in a seeming paradox — most often lost due to price. Think of winning with service as the client saying, “Yes, I like what you’re offering for the price I’m paying.” Conversely, losing on price may sound like, “I don’t like the price for what I’m getting,” making service a crucial determinant of both winning and losing business. This is why it is imperative that plan sponsors understand where their fees are going and the value they can derive from your services.

The plan review offers you an opportunity to demonstrate the value you offer for the fee you collect.

Participant service beyond investment results

A lot of financial professionals get stuck on the fund lineup. They emphasize the prior year’s investment results when most participants are in the Qualified Default Investment Alternative (QDIA) and do not concern themselves with the short-term market impacts on their retirement account. They should, in fact, be thinking about the steps they need to take to be successful in the long term.

Talking only about investments opens you up to competition coming in with slightly better numbers, and suddenly your plan is vulnerable. But when you talk in depth about how the plan can better serve its participants and what you plan to do, you change the conversation from a numbers game where fees may be foremost in a sponsor’s mind to a value proposition that demonstrates why you’re the financial professional of choice. 

3 key participant success metrics

Three numbers can help guide you through a plan review in a way that not only shows you care about the plan but can also offer possible solutions to any problems that are uncovered.

1. Participation rate — How many employees participate in the plan may be the most important benchmark, and sometimes it’s the easiest to address, either with auto-enrollment or enhanced participant communication.
2. Deferral rate — Are the participants contributing enough? If there’s concern, common considerations include increasing the default contribution percentage, establishing auto-escalation or communicating to participants about a potentially underutilized employer match.
3. Investment utilization — Do individual allocations appear misaligned with employees’ best interests? If participants opt for more conservative choices than they should, techniques like investment re-enrollment may supplement participant education. Or the menu itself may be too large to allow participants to make confident decisions.

These metrics measure the success of the plan. By focusing on them in your next plan review, you supplement the discussion of all the work you’ve done for the plan in the previous year and offer measurable suggestions to help improve plan effectiveness and participation for the next year.

How to help plan sponsors encourage participants

To really keep a client happy, you have to help them sell participants on the value of the plan. Increasingly, this includes one-on-one participant meetings.

RLF research found that participant one-on-ones are a significant driver of wealth leads. For medium to large retirement plans, every 10 participant meetings uncovers a $1 million prospect. For smaller plans, every 10 participant meetings uncovers a $400,000 prospect.

The RLF survey also revealed that one-on-ones are a standard service offering for the majority of plans. If you’re in the 22% who still offer these only as an add-on, it may be time to consider a change.

Elevate the conversation strategically

Once you’ve gotten the plan sponsor on board with the value of the plan and why the review is important, take some time to talk about key facets of the plan and whether any changes are needed.

Fees are usually top of mind for financial professionals and plan sponsors alike. The fee conversation is a great time to remind the plan sponsor that, when talking about plan costs, you're really talking about value. You may or may not have the lowest fees, but what really matters is the value you provide overall.

Your value proposition statement reminds the plan sponsor what you bring to the table. If you don’t have one, we have tools available to help you create one.

What industry trends or legislative changes may have affected the plan or will in the coming year? Bringing these to the plan sponsor’s attention can help assure them that you’re staying current and informed.

Plan review tools for Capital Group clients

By putting the focus on participants, plan reviews can help improve outcomes, plan effectiveness and the employer-employee relationship.  This can help leave the client feeling good about themselves — and by extension, you.

These participant outreach tools can help support your conversations:

• ICanRetire® ^†  — This digital participant engagement program is designed to make retirement planning approachable for all. The customized program includes a website and emails and is tailored for participants and the plan sponsor’s objectives.
• Financial literacy initiatives — Capital Group’s financial literacy content is designed to help address some basic investing concepts.
• Capital Group’s 2026 Outlook can help you explain investment trends to clients.
• Plan your journey to retirement  —  Download this educational presentation to deliver to participants.

Don’t hesitate to reach out to your Capital Group team with any questions about these resources or the review process. We’re here to help you win and retain retirement plan business.

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