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July 21, 2015 at 08:22 AM
During periods of business expansion, sales teams are traditionally credited for client wins and top-line growth. Behind the scenes, however, customer loyalty and increased profitability is often the product of sales representatives and account managers working together to deliver the highest level of service to their clients.
Insurance carriers take many different approaches to account management, but recently, two primary models have emerged: (1) a centralized or “home office” model; and (2) a local or “distributed” model. While both approaches have their pros and cons, certain client portfolios are clearly conducive to one of the two.
Below is a breakdown of each model as well as potential benefits for carriers, brokers and employers, and instances where one model may be superior to another.
The centralized model
The “home office” or centralized account management model typically consists of a team of home office account managers who provide services to a designated group of customers. For instance, some teams are broken out by regions serving specific time zones, or by experience serving employers in different industries such as healthcare or financial services.
The centralized model can be very effective if the plan designs or needs of all customers in the group are very similar, and if there is little variation driven by state regulations or other requirements. This model is also effective when there is a high volume of calls or inquiries coming in from customers to the service team.
While account managers in a centralized model are typically more tenured than traditional customer service representatives, members of the team will often share the same skill set, such as experience with billing and enrollment issues.
This allows them to respond to inquiries from many customers, regardless of whether or not they’ve been in frequent contact in the past. They may also be able to build a bank of industry knowledge that can be applied to future interactions with employers in the same region, industry, etc.
