Recently, I've noticed that there is a huge opportunity to fix one of the major complaints that many people have about the health insurance industry — and it can be done by using corporate social networking profiles.
A lot of companies are getting into social networking by creating corporate Twitter and Facebook accounts. A lot of these are just marketing tools, but a few companies handle a portion of their customer support through Twitter.
Comcast in particular has a terrible customer service track record, but for some reason, people receive great service when they send requests to Comcast via Twitter.
Why would the company be more responsive through a social network than over the phone? The simple answer is that the entire world can see what happens on Twitter. If a customer has a problem and it isn't resolved quickly, millions of people would likely know about it almost immediately. Companies can't afford anything other than great service when they know that there's absolute transparency. If you call Comcast on the phone, the worst that can happen is that they lose you as a customer.
Now, let's apply this to health insurance. Everyone has heard the horror stories about people with good insurance being denied coverage because the insurance companies have to watch their profit margins. The common complaint goes something like this: "They're a huge corporation, and I'm just one person. They don't have to listen to me."
And that's just from a consumer standpoint. As an agent, you may have had trouble getting your questions answered or getting through to a carrier for other reasons — the company is so large that your call gets lost in the shuffle, you wait too long on hold and eventually decide to hang up, etc.
