I thought that I was tough on Nest yesterday but here’s Richard Smith in a proper grump as he reports a conversation going on his head. It’s the conversation I didn’t dare to have!

Here’s the thing. Now that there is the staging of auto-enrolment has been over for seven years, there’s not a lot of “new business ” to win if you’re a master trust. Other, that is, to win if from another master trust or to buy one.

When it comes to institutional capture, it looks a pretty ropey job for a sales person.

The market for growth (or consolidation as we call it nowadays) is at the member level and if you’re in a position to promote one pot against another , you’re probably a financial adviser promoting a transfer to a wealth fund wrapped by a Self Invested Personal Penson.

Instead of discussing Value for Money with a member, you are left to promote the idea of a single pot from which to drawdown your income. That sounds a good idea and I wouldn’t think anyone can mount a strong argument against Nest as a good pot to consolidate your other pots.

Nest is unique among master trusts in offering membership to the self-employed. No one knows that , not even Martin Lewis who promotes personal pensions! With 4% of the self-employed saving for a pension, you’d have thought that Nest’s sales and marketing team would get off their bottoms.

But as Richard Smith points out, Nest’s having 14m savers is the most cogent reason you’re going to consider retiring all your pots to  Nest. But even if you know nothing about performance testing or charges or (most importantly) the default decumulator,  the service you are getting is all you can judge Nest by. Service is hardly inspiring!

I know I’m one of 14m and we can’t all be treated as VIPs, but I’d expect with over £60bn behind them, Nest could do rather better than Richard I’ve been treated!

I had expected to see Nest delivering a superb service through the Pensions Dashboard, one that made me proud to be a Nest saver. This is Government’s pension dealing with the MoneyHelper, a Government funded quango delivering a Government pension finder (the Pensions Dashboard).

It is also helping you understand your retirement. I am about to turn 65 and want accurate information about what’s going to pay my bills. Instead I got information that looks 18 months old (as Richard confirms). What did the sales and marketing team think that would encourage?

You’d like to think that the functional delivery of data that I can get having gone through a process of identification almost as tough as being a Pensions Dashboard tester, would give me an idea of what I’m getting as a pension (or at least a default guided retirement pathway).

I’d like to see something that would make me excited about saving with Nest beyond some chirpy little birds…

The investment team at Nest is steaming ahead – it’s deal with IFM is fascinating. The proposals for a default decumulation pathway outlined by Paul Todd some time ago are as good as “fix and flex” is going to get, I’d like to think that this flock of birds could give me a good reason to bring my pots to Nest.

But we’ve become so petrified at offering a good idea like the pension dashboard that we’ve given up and offer a limp find a pension service instead, one that’s available elsewhere and looks like a sales and marketing department that’s frightened to do their job.

What has Nest’s new business team  been doing the seven years since it stopped onboarding employers en masse?

Can it please give me some reason for me to add to my Nest pot?