Customer Care in Health Insurance Industry

About

Retaining existing customers and identification of new prospective customers can be a daunting, expensive and tough task for any organization. The same applies to insurance organizations also. Especially, in this day and age where cut-throat competition is widely prevalent and quest for excellence exists, importance of customer care cannot be ignored. Good customer care service can also give small companies an edge over their market competitors. Great customer care services can do wonders for the business of an organization.

Being patient with customers

• Research studies show that businesses spend six times as much on identifying a new customer just as they do to retain an existing one. Every business - no matter how small or big - should have a well-defined strategy for dealing with customers irrespective of any bias. Listening patiently to customers can lend a cutting edge in all areas of the business from developing new products up to finding out more details about you're the market competitors.
• Decide and define a strategy as to how and when to communicate with customers - by newsletter, telephone, e-mail or questionnaire, at point of sale or delivery or as a post-sales follow-up and how to deal with them individually.

• Encourage staff to record customer feedback which is considered as valuable aspect for any business.
• Keep talking to your customers diplomatically.
• Tell customers of any important changes that will affect them. If you warn them of a possible problem in advance they will be able to adapt more easily.
• Never be rude with customers.
• Always have a smile on the face with a pleasant disposition.

Some of the aspects that customers find most annoying include:-

• Replying to a recorded telephone message, keeping the customer held in a queue for long time.
• Having consumer rights ignored for example refusal to pay for faulty goods or services or refund for faulty goods.
• Bureaucracy;
• Rude or over-friendly staff - both aspects can be equally irritating;
• Staff who refuse to disclose their name when asked by the customer.
• Broken and undelivered promises.
• Inflexible delivery times.
• Failure to deliver goods and services as per the deadlines.

Customer Care Accountability

• Each organization should possess a measurable standards of healthcare services being offered to a prospective customer and make sure that customercare staff works towards achieving the desired goal. Invest in training so that all the employees in that organization including managers are made aware regarding the importance of customer care services. Simply remind the staff of the organization to put themselves in the customer's shoes.
• Encourage employees to use their initiative and innovative ideas. Let the rest of the business know when something has worked well or otherwise. Remember experimentation works for the betterment of an organization. In case if the experimentation fails, an immediate or corrective action should be initiated.
• According to recent research studies on customer satisfaction, a satisfied customer spreads the word of satisfaction amongst three or four people whilst an angry customer passes the bad news on to ten people. However, research studies depict that if a complaint is dealt in a proper, deft and amicable manner with well the prospective customer, it works wonder for an organization.
• It is better to check that there is a proper system, procedures and processes of dealing with customer complaints. All the employees in the organization should be made aware about the processes.
• Customer care initiative should start from the top-level management and thereafter percolate to the bottom level (employees) of the organization.

References:

1. Customer Satisfaction in 7 Steps - (http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/satisfaction-7-steps)
2. Have an insurance complaint? Read this - (http://www.rediff.com/money/2004/mar/22perfin.htm)