Report: Customers ready to pay more for customized health plans

{mosads}“We expect more personalized customer service to emerge as a major source of healthcare differentiation, much like other industries today,” Russ Nash, who leads Accenture’s U.S. payer business, said in a statement. “The health insurance industry must use insight-driven health to better understand the expectations of its unique customer segments and how to [enhance] customer relationships to impact revenue growth.”

Among the five characteristics customers rated most important:

• Knowledgeable representatives: Roughly 85 percent rated interaction with knowledgeable employees as highly important, yet fewer than 50 percent were satisfied with current experience;

• Convenient service hours: Nearly 80 percent prefer customer service being extended to weekend and evening hours, while fewer than half currently experience this convenience;

• Wait time: About 80 percent rate wait time as important, but more than 60 percent said they were kept waiting too long by current health plan providers; and

• Single contact: More than 80 percent said dealing with one contact to resolve issues was important, but 60 percent said they currently were transferred to multiple contacts to resolve issues.