As 2009 swings in and the dust of the renewal season clears, it's time to start making plans for success in the new year. What ideas can we consider to help us gain a competitive edge?
First, let's divide our thinking into the various elements of selling benefits: client acquisition, client retention and client management. It's important to have a strategy for each.
Acquiring new clients
In 2009, new customers for benefits are likely to want more assurance than ever that they're buying from a stable organization. There is uncertainty over recent bailouts of large financial institutions. This likely will lead employers to be ever more cautious when selecting a benefits vendor. Benefit buyers are likely to look for long histories of stability, trusted names and for companies with a solid outlook.
Value for the dollar will be important. Employers will be balancing their desire to acquire benefits from a trusted source against the price of a benefit program. More than ever, employers are likely to retrench their own benefit dollars toward core medical and retirement benefits, opening doors to expansion of voluntary programs. While it seems logical that voluntary benefits will provide opportunities for added sales, employers are likely to be interested in bargains for employees, as well. As a result, employers may be interested in lower-cost group voluntary products for their employees.
Client retention
Some strategies for retaining employer clients are the same as above. These include a renewal strategy to seek the combination of stable, financially sound benefit providers and low cost to the employer (or employee, for voluntary plans).
Your ability to give employers help in getting the most value out of their benefit dollars includes providing value added services. Consider offering your employers Web-based services your organization can tailor to the employer with little incremental cost to you.
For example, it is not difficult to draft a set of "About Your Benefits" e-mails to be sent to employees regularly, underscoring why the employer offers the benefit, the needs it addresses, and the value of the program. While details of each employer's plan designs vary, the needs and overall benefits usually can be described in general terms. And e-mail is a low cost format.
To introduce an interactive element to benefit education, consider assisting employers in setting up "Benefits Blogs" where employees can post questions or comments. This kind of interactive touch will be especially helpful in communicating with employees in Generation X and Generation Y.
Client management
Cross-selling in 2009 will require more sensitivity than ever to the employer objection "my employees can't afford any more." For many employers adding voluntary benefits has been the road to providing expanded benefits without expanded employer cost. But now employers are likely to be concerned about expanded employee cost as well. Successful introduction of added voluntary benefits may center around positioning the appeal to segments of the employee population who may be less excited about traditional benefits.
For example, items like identity theft protection and legal access services may appeal more to Generation X and Y employees, who are less concerned about needs met by life, disability and critical illness coverage. At the same time, open enrollment "second chances" may be popular with other employee segments. People with family security needs may be more insecure about their ability to cope without insurance benefits. Consider campaigns combining these two elements, which emphasize providing benefits to new participants rather than selling more to current participants.
