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Don’t recommend the wrong tech vendor. Today, they’re popping up everywhere — especially in the HR and employee benefits industry. While they are certainly trendy and have generated a lot of buzz, these new vendors often lack the service and experience to back up their lofty promises. It’s more important than ever to be wary of vendors who rely on a sleek user experience but lack health care expertise, powerful back-end technology, and a strong focus on security and compliance. Ensuring all of those components are part of the vendor’s offering will optimize the value of your solution and avoid major headaches in the long-run for you and your clients. Here’s how you can make sure you don’t get burned:

1.) Don’t trust — verify. Compliance is key. As we’ve seen in this recent race to the marketplace, many tech vendors are so focused on growth that they lose sight of extremely important compliance requirements. Adherence to industry guidelines is crucial to avoiding serious penalties for your clients. In a recent interview, Rob Butler, founder and CEO of Maestro Health, warned that, “As companies start gaining momentum, it becomes even more alluring to cut corners. This is especially true in highly-regulated industries like health care benefit brokering, where hiring and training people may require more time than the companies wish to spend.” Does the vendor have expert staff dedicated to compliance? Are there strict, documented procedures in place? Worthy vendors will not only adhere to guidelines themselves, but be able to relieve a lot of this burden for you and your clients.

2.) Don’t skimp on data security. These days, data breaches are a real and constant threat, especially when it comes to personal health information. A recent NBC News report noted that “roughly one out of every three Americans had their health care records compromised, and “most were not even aware of the problem.” Ask your vendor for proof of licenses and certifications. When was their last security risk assessment? Can the vendor provide client references to validate their commitment to keeping your clients’ sensitive information safe? 3.) Take a look under the hood. Most Silicon Valley start-ups boast a flashy front-end user experience, but fall short when it comes to strong, functional internal operations to support this on the back-end. A cool site is great, but that will be the last thing on an employee’s mind if there was a mistake in their benefits enrollment. Some key features of a robust back-end include:

• Sophisticated data transaction processing (checks and balances)

• Scalability

• Billing/reconciliation capabilities

• Ease of integration with other solutions

• EDI connections

In addition, be sure to look into the vendor’s ability to personalize and make configurations quickly and easily. How efficiently can the vendor react to changes and respond to any errors that might occur? (Beware: Most vendors say they can customize quickly and easily, but unless their back-end technology is strong, it will end up costing you and your clients far more time and money than you bargained for.)

4.) Seek a service attitude – not just a department. Brokers can’t be expected to be the only source of guidance and support when it comes to implementing new employee health and benefits solutions, and many tech-only vendors aren’t of much help. Ask your vendor about the experience of their service teams. Do they have capacity to scale high-quality service to larger clients? A vendor with a service-minded attitude will be able to meet your clients where they are by personalizing a service experience that meets their unique needs. Live chat, screen sharing, email, phone, and in-person support should all be available, if needed. Vendors that can provide this level of personal, expert support will end up making both you and your clients’ lives much easier during implementation and throughout the year. 5.) Measure transparency. Over-promising and under-delivering runs rampant in the technology industry. Pay attention to the signs. If deadlines consistently go unmet and you can’t seem to get a straight answer from anybody, that’s a red flag. While effort is appreciated, you should always look for results and clear proof points. Vendors should willingly share their current capabilities and pipelines. Request references. Talk to both satisfied and unsatisfied customers to get a complete view of the vendor. If you can’t trust that a vendor will do what they say they can do for you and your clients, what’s the point?

6. Don’t forget about culture. A company’s culture usually says a lot about their products and services. Do they have a clear set of strong corporate values? Is integrity and humility a greater priority than growth alone? A unified culture that is client-focused will almost always result in a higher quality product and service experience.

Recommending the wrong tech vendor can cost you, your client and their employees tons of time and money while putting all at serious risk of non-compliance penalties and data security issues. When a vendor that you vouch for causes more headaches than they cure, your reputation as a trusted expert and advisor will be seriously damaged— along with your client base.

Instant Insights /

Protect your reputation: 6 ways to avoid getting burned

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