If you're like the typical benefits professional, you've justsucceeded in adding nearly 40 percent of your year's production. Asyou wrap up all that January 1 business, it's already time toconsider your plan to keep it. Profitability doesn't come fromacquiring business, but from retaining happy customers and thebenefits of the revenue stream they create.

From a customer's viewpoint, benefits that are purchased and notused don't have much value, so it's in their best interest to keepthe benefits they purchase. One would think this isa simple win-win proposition, but stats tell us that all too manycustomers will purchase benefits that become effective this month,and then drop them, creating no value for anyone.

Customer retention at the employer level is a matter ofproactive communication. Begin the year by reporting and discussingthe results of the most recent enrollment with the employer.Discuss what went well, issues that were encountered and results.If specific carriers or products had issues and underperformed,have discussions with both the product provider and employer tounderstand and eliminate the drivers. If the employer used a benadmin system to process the enrollment, review how it performed inthe customer's eyes. Make sure the employer knows that your role isto step in and help them whenever an issue arises during theyear.

Once the review is complete, the discussion should immediatelyturn to planning for next year. This can cover planting seeds foraddition of products, changes in plan design and enrollmentadministration process, and services that can help minimize thework they need to do to support a successful enrollment.

Keeping employee customers is just as vital. When employeeschoose to drop voluntary coverage, it sends a message to employersthat the benefits may not be considered valuable. And there's alsoa loss of revenue when employees drop coverage.

It used to be difficult to communicate with employees at timesother than annual enrollment, but today's technology facilitatescommunication. Studies consistently show that employees areinterested in making the right choices and welcome educationalopportunities to better understand their benefits.

However, you don't want to bombard employees with informationoff-cycle. Communication should be carefully planned so employeesare reminded of opportunities to learn more without feeling theyreceive too much “ben-spam.”

We recommend conducting a brief survey asking for feedback onthe recently completed enrollment. A couple of months after theenrollment is complete, it might be appropriate to send out areminder of where plan documents are stored, carrier micrositesthat describe the benefits offered and the number to call or textif there are benefit related questions. Third, in the late summer,it's a good idea to send out a reminder that open enrollment willbegin in the fall, that the available time to consider benefitswill be limited, and that they can access resources to help plan.Examples include benefit summaries, videos and needscalculators.

In the end, planning to keep customers comes down to effectiveplanning of communication with customers.