Every stakeholder comes to the value-added benefits enrollment process from a different point of view. For the agent, it’s effectively sharing the advantages of their products with potential clients. For the HR professional, it’s a matter of state and federal compliance mixed with a desire to create a healthy, happy workforce. Lastly, for the employee, it’s protecting their family in the most cost-effective manner possible.

Appealing to such a wide range of individual personas is no easy task. However, it is an essential part of optimizing your benefits enrollment process. Today we’re going to take a look at how a good customer experience adds value to the enrollment process. Plus, some methods to maintain that value beyond the open enrollment period.

Optimizing the Benefits Ecosystem

The insurance agent, the human resources professional (and by extension the employer), and the company’s workforce combine to form an ecosystem predicated on employee benefits. It is the role of the agent to provide the benefits package, answer any employee questions, and alleviate hesitation. Then, in turn, it’s the HR professional’s role to help facilitate discussion between the agent and the employee.

Along the way, secondary relationships form. The agent’s goals often align with the HR manager’s: fostering employee buy-in regarding offered benefits. At its very essence, this is an ecosystem that runs on communication, convenience, and transparency. In turn, each of these is emblematic of a superior customer experience. The goal here is to adopt a customer experience solution that adds value to all parties, treating each as an equal shareholder.

Value-Added Benefits Enrollment Through Benefits Zone

According to Employee Benefits News, 41% of employers use some form of data analytics to measure and evaluate their employee’s utilization of sponsored benefits. Another 72% of employers believe they are effectively communicating their offerings to employees. Yet, according to a recent survey, over 96% of Americans lack even a rudimentary understanding of the benefits enrollment process. There is a clear disconnect prevalent in the average company’s benefits ecosystem.

The failure point is technology, or rather, a lack thereof. Only a meager 19% of businesses actively use a digital solution to help educate employees and foster three-party communications. This is the true inflection point for a benefits lifecycle that truly stresses value-added services.

A benefits-centric software solution such as Benefits Zone can help sync up communication between agents, human resources, and the employee by providing tools that foster convenience for all three stakeholders. With the Benefits Zone app, the employer can effectively communicate the bespoke needs of their workforce to the agent who can then create a custom package tailored to that company and its employees. They can then disseminate plan information conveniently and discreetly via the platform’s SMS functionality. In turn, the employee is free to absorb plan information and resources at their own pace. They are also provided with a dedicated, 24/7 channel for asking questions and initiating self-enrollment. Value-add for the HR department comes in the form of employee engagement and increased benefits utilization. Each participant enjoys a refined customer experience based on mutual convenience.

Beyond Enrollment

With the traditional enrollment process, once the enrollment window closes, the agent packs up shop and moves on to their next sales assignment. Any lingering questions or ongoing concerns become the property of the HR department. Frontline HR professionals have to add plan administration duties to their already hectic schedule with tough questions from employees becoming an especially time-consuming burden.

Benefits, however, should be an ongoing relationship. Benefits Zone helps you leverage technology in your favor to keep employees, HR professionals, and your company connected to your benefits agent(s) by creating an enduring ecosystem that prevails long after the open enrollment period has ended.

We’d love to show you the Benefits Zone platform in action. For more information, or to request a free demo, please contact us today.