Peanut butter, jelly and partnerships: ingredients for voluntary success

In trying times, people tend to rely on what they’re comfortable with. There’s a reason PB&J and chicken noodle soup are called “comfort” food – they’re tried and true. For me, it’s pizza, it just always relaxes me. You turn to comfort foods like that when you need something safe and reliable.



I think it’s safe to say that, we’re currently living through trying times. And, in the world of voluntary business, that means collectively, we’re going to be most likely to turn to the partners that serve as “comfort food”. Relationships like that are one of the most important parts of success in voluntary: relationships of trust, confidence and comfort that you’ll come through for partners and their clients.

As with many things, the devils in the detail’s. So what are some of the most essential ingredients for becoming “a comfort food rep” with your partners? Here are a few keys:

Communication

Communication is a broad topic. And, just about any relationship requires effective communication. But in the world of voluntary, communication means a lot of different things that you have to get right. You have to be able to communicate benefits effectively to employees and you have to be able to provide resources to support communication about important initiatives for employers.

Communication also means accountability to employers as well. Whether it be reporting, communication through the setup of a case or just plain old responsiveness to inquiries and issues that arise, you have to get communication right on every level. It can be difficult, but I find effective communication starts with empathy. Put yourself in the employer’s or employee’s shoes, think about their needs and build your communication from there.

Benefit selection

Voluntary products are all different, but to those less familiar with our industry, the difference between one life insurance and another life insurance product may not seem that big. That’s where our role as consultants and advisors to our clients becomes so important.

Selecting the right benefits requires evaluation of a number of factors. What benefits are already in place? When were those benefits last evaluated? What does the medical coverage look like? What can employees afford? So, choosing the right benefits isn’t straightforward and it isn’t easy, which means to earn the trust of your clients, you have to choose wisely.

Participation

Whether we like it or not, we’re in a results driven industry. If no one is participating in an enrollment, no one is enrolling in benefits and all the work is for naught. Fortunately, if you’re doing the first things right (communication and benefits selection), you’re already 90 percent of the way to success on participation. If you do the process right, the results will come, but it’s still important to note that the results matter.

Was it easy?

Great results that were a pain for an employer to implement cause problems. Sure, employees have benefits and understand them, but at what cost to the employer and their HR department? The systems, operations and customer service need to match the quality of the results, the quality of the benefits and the quality of the communication you provided to employees.

There are a number of ways you can lose the trust of an employer or producer partner if you don’t deliver on the service end. Billing needs to be accurate and easy to manage. The benefits technology needs to integrate with existing systems. Claims should be simple and straightforward for employees. In general, responsiveness and accountability need to be ever-present in your relationships.

People want to feel security today more than ever. Taking care of these key steps consistently, is what earns you the trust you need to succeed for yourself and your clients. Let’s face it, with the way things are right now, we could all use a little more stability and security in our lives, so it’s up to us to work at being comfort food to our partners and clients.