A superannuation client commissioned Forethought to provide it with greater insight into factors that placed members at risk of defection.  In particular, they were keen to identify specific members who were most ‘at risk’ of defection, to enable them to develop appropriate proactive strategies to increase the likelihood of their retention. For this project Forethought utilised the proprietary tool known as InMate®, which draws on a suite of research and analysis techniques, to identify the key drivers of defection.

A key advantage for the client was that prior to this project, Forethought had conducted their operational performance and business outcomes research and as such Forethought was able to utilise the data collected from that research for this latest project. Forethought also drew upon information the client held in their own client database to augment the existing research data.  By combining these two sources of information with binary logistic regression Forethought was able to provide a deeper understanding of defection and increase the actionability of the research output. 

In this case, the vast majority of factors that emerged as significant drivers of defection were in fact identifiable in our client’s own internally held database. This finding enabled our client to take a two step process in implementation of the results. The first step was to verify the validity of the defection model by profiling members who had recently exited the fund against the profile generated from Inmate® analysis. The next and perhaps most important step, was to then identify and flag members within our client’s own database, who were at risk of potential defection.

Forethought successfully provided this client with an insight into the factors that significantly contributed to member defection and assisted them in identifying and flagging these members within their own member database. Our client was then able to develop strategies to reduce the likelihood of defection. In addition, the identification of the relative influence of each factor, and their cumulative effect in explaining the risk of defection enabled those who commissioned the research to complete a business case for undertaking such efforts.