Three years ago, Amanda Hahn and her team at NFP Corporate Services had a problem: How could they communicate complex plans, address employees’ questions and concerns, and still have enough time to focus on their high-level consulting work?
Enter ALEX, with its 24/7, always-on ability to explain even the densest benefits package in jargon-free, question-quashing terms. After rolling out ALEX to a few key clients, Amanda and her team soon realized that the partnership was a win on all fronts.
Recently, we talked to Amanda about her experience with ALEX. Here’s what she had to say:
ALEX helps us do our jobs better
“Even before ALEX came into our lives, clients would say, ‘We want you to be here, here, and here, for 30 open enrollment meetings and cities!’ and we’d ask ‘Is this what you want us to be doing? Or do you want us to be in the office, being responsive to you and your people?’ ALEX gives us the leverage to be able to say that we can do both now. It’s freed us up to do the consulting that we love to do: compliance, analytics, helping clients be up-to-speed on the legislative updates that are out there. We can’t do that if we’re floating all over the country, doing in-person open enrollment meetings.”
The ROI for ALEX is easy to prove
“For existing clients who switched to ALEX, our travel time has gone down to a third of what it was before.
Usually, with a new client who expects us to travel and be there in person, we agree to do that the first year, and we measure the success. Then, the following year, the first thing we do is lead with Jellyvision and tell them why we think it’s the most effective tool. We show them how much we spent on travel, how many people showed up, how much engagement we had, and then we show them what we think Jellyvision can provide for them instead.
We had one client where, when we signed on, they already had 70% engagement. In no way did they expect that many of their eligible population to go through ALEX and look at the entire medical module. Well, we didn’t have 70%… we had about 80%. And those users reported 100% better understanding of their medical plan, once they finished the module.”
ALEX is great for onboarding and reaching dispersed populations
“There are two buzzwords that we listen for, where we immediately tell companies that we think ALEX is the right fit for them.
The first one is ‘growth mode,’ because we know that they’re hiring, and they’re hiring quick. With ALEX, they’ll be able to send out a quick link, rather than having to do an in-person benefits orientation for every single solitary new hire. If I hear the words ‘growth mode,’ I know ALEX is a thing for you!
We’ve got a company that was in hyper-growth, acquisition mode. They put ALEX in, and they were like, ‘this is the greatest thing ever, to send that out at the end of every week.’ New hires can go to the link, they look through it themselves, and they collect their benefits. It’s taken a huge burden off of us, too.
The other buzzword we listen for is ‘multi-sited.’ We have a ton of groups where HR for main benefits might only be in one location, but there are satellite offices that don’t have a ton of HR presence. And we always say to them: consistency of information is so important. You may offer the same benefits to everybody across the country, but they’re not necessarily hearing the same things. Being able to have that one source of information where everyone’s hearing the same thing, everyone’s getting the same result—it’s so key for employee retention.
ALEX reduces confusion (and the risk of a lawsuit)
“It’s also a huge reduction of liability, for the information to all come from one source. We actually have a couple of groups right now that rely on their local HR team to sit with every employee. It’s part of their culture, and we appreciate that it’s part of their culture. Well, I happened to go to a wellness fair, just to have a presence as a broker, and I’m sitting there hearing them completely incorrectly explain benefits to an employee. Those types of things can happen when you’re relying on somebody who…well, when this is not all that they do. It can completely happen. With ALEX, you know the information is correct.
Honestly, there are very few employers where I just don’t see it working for them. I recommend ALEX for anyone who says that communication is an issue, anyone who says that education is an issue, or that people don’t understand their benefits.”
