Economic conditions, legislative changes and competitive markets have drastically changed the role of the human resource professional and the benefits broker in recent years. Along with HR's transformation, the role of the benefits broker has evolved as well. Brokers have gone from simply facilitating transactions to being a true benefits advocate, helping HR reach core objectives through tailor-made benefits plans. Brokers who have not evolved are being squeezed out. As open enrollment approaches this fall, companies will evaluate their benefits programs and relationships with their benefits brokers. Now is the time to demonstrate your value and build client loyalty. In a competitive environment, how can you ensure you are differentiating yourself as a benefits broker? Consider these four tips.
Communicate Throughout the Year
Communicating outside the open enrollment season strengthens your client relationships and reinforces your value to them. Businesses need to feel like your services are year-round. Do you quickly respond to questions about benefits and eligibility, member enrollment or regulatory changes regardless of the time of year? Be proactive. Don't wait for clients to come to you with questions. Reach out when legislative changes are made, keeping clients in the loop about how they will be affected. Let them see you as an expert on the marketplace, not just a salesperson. Keep HR up-to-date about marketplace trends. Host quarterly webinars or in-person Q & A's with employees to answer any questions that have come up. Schedule regular check-ins.
Leverage Technology
Keeping the lines of communication open with all your clients all year long might seem overwhelming. However, leveraging technology can help facilitate communication and streamline processes. An effective software platform will enable you to get important information out to hundreds of clients with the click of a button. Consider four ways leading benefits technology provider Clarity is helping brokers communicate important information with their clients.
- Connect benefits with organizational goals. HR is tasked with improving employee engagement, satisfaction, retention and productivity. Companies know what's at stake. Employee disengagement costs American businesses over $500 billion annually. As a broker, demonstrate that you are part of the solution. Use an enrollment platform that tracks benefits analytics and measures the plan's performance.
- Educate clients on important regulations. Forbes named this criteria on its list of "What to Look for in a Good Benefits Broker or Consultant." COBRA, FMLA, FLSA, HIPAA, ACA and ERISA. There's a plethora of regulations that HR must ensure the company is compliant with. Take the pressure off by proactively ensuring compliance and keeping your clients informed about any changes. In addition to simply being informative, Clarity's platform enables brokers to automate COBRA compliance at each stage of the benefits lifecycle. It also features ACA management tools that provide full service 1094 and 1095 reporting and monitoring.
- Utilize big data to mitigate risk. Use available data to your clients' advantage. Aggregated data on employee benefits utilization can be extremely valuable for identifying risk and mitigating it. For example, data and trends may reveal that employees within a company fall into a certain high-risk group. Your client's employees may be at risk for chronic health conditions or high pharmacy utilization. Identifying these risks early-on will help you create an enrollment strategy that mitigates the risks or fills gaps in their current plan offerings. Clarity provides numerous reports to help you analyze the data to create the best plan, including billing reports, census reports and hundreds of other standard reports. Additionally, you can use Clarity's custom report writer to get exactly what you need to exceed client expectations.
- Show how clients can increase their productivity. Demonstrate how your technology partner can help increase your clients' productivity. An effective benefits software solution automates processes for HR. Clarity automatically updates carriers, payroll providers and other third parties with no effort on the broker's or the client's part. Clarity's software also enables HR to go paperless, further increasing productivity and saving money, in addition to increasing security and providing greater accessibility to important documents. One survey found that document challenges account for a 21.3 percent productivity loss. Demonstrate how partnering with you will help HR gain that productivity back.
Think Like a Marketer
According to BenefitsPro magazine, brokers need to "think like marketers" when putting together benefits packages. When employees are happy, HR will be happy, and you'll keep your client. Employees want their enrollment experience to appear much like online shopping platforms. They must be intuitive, easy and quick. However, benefits platforms must also be informative and in compliance. Brokers face the challenge of creating a message that appeals to an audience that is used to getting answers at the touch of a button. Take advantage of an enrollment platform, like Clarity, that increases automation and engagement.
When employees can clearly see their options, participation increases and brokers sell more lines of coverage. Utilize Clarity's marketplace to effectively promote ancillary and voluntary lines of coverage. Effective marketing through your software platform can also increase non-traditional revenue streams, such as identity protection services and customer-driven plans. These additional offerings further increase employee perceived value, and differentiate you as their premier benefits broker.
Really Listen
According to Fast Company, "there's nothing that is more effective for improving the quality of your product or service than listening to your customers." That holds true across industry sectors. Each company is unique. It's important to clearly identify your client's concerns and goals. However, don't just take this step with new clients. Continue to re-evaluate client goals in order to provide valuable solutions. This includes listening to HR managers and individual employees. Start talking to your clients now. Learn their pain points. When open enrollment comes in the fall, you'll be strategically positioned to provide the best benefit solutions, and outpace your competition.
Clarity is committed to providing benefit software tools for brokers that enable them to easily implement the tips outlined above. Contact us to learn more about our software solutions.
