Jul
11
Written by:
Jennifer Hickman
7/11/2011 7:46 AM
Customer engagement means different things in every industry. For health plans, customer engagement cuts across every aspect of their relationship with members. Building an effective member engagement strategy starts with defining strategic objectives. These typically fall into three areas: improve member retention, improve quality scores (e.g., STAR Ratings for Medicare Advantage and under PPACA, overall health plan ratings), and optimize member outreach.
Each requires distinct planning, but before diving into strategy development it is important to complete a thorough current state assessment to provide an accurate intelligence baseline. One popular assessment consists of a touch-point map that documents all member interactions, a process map that outlines internal processes that support member interactions, and a data map that describes what, when and where data is captured, stored, and used.
Retention & Loyalty
When member retention is the main goal, the current state assessment should also include an attrition analysis. First, predict which members are most likely to leave and when, prioritize them, and design an actionable plan to keep them. It is important to build a plan that spans a members life – more frequent interaction across multiple offerings the more likely the member will stay. The payoff is measured in terms of LifeTime Value.
Quality Improvement
When the goal is quality improvement, a current state assessment should document quality scores. This is often reported through HEDIS measures, customer service survey scores, and for Medicare Advantage, STAR Ratings. The resulting strategy should focus on key measurements for improvement and target specific members who fall within these measures.
Confident Communication
Streamlining and optimizing existing communications should be an easy task, but it is not. If the plan historically measured ROI on each member communication or outreach program it would be easy – but this is rarely the case. Therefore, initially focusing on redundant or overlapping communications eliminates costly duplication. Then, implement standardized measures and tracking, and design testing matrices that support a learning agenda. For example, do we get the desired outcome with one interaction, two, or three? Should we call, mail, email or combine them? Once programs are measured and tracked, results will tell your customer communication story. Figure out what works and what doesn’t to continue to refine your member learning agenda.
Regardless of the overall goals and objectives: retention, quality scores, or communication efficiency – it is important to personalize member experiences at the most granular level. Utilize customer segmentation schemes as well as survey and experience data to tailor communications and outreach to be relevant and timely. The result will have bottom-line impact.