It’s no secret that providing Employee Benefits for healthcare & insurance organizations is becoming progressively competitive. Customers keep demanding a better overall experience & favorable pricing as more players enter the foray. As part of that “experience”, companies expect benefits providers to remain highly engaged with their employees by delivering on-site training. This becomes a big challenge especially for providers looking to scale.
Although training and education is an essential part of any benefits business, they also represent a massive cost. When small providers look at their finance sheets, they find travel associated with sending staff for on-site training is a major expense that keeps ballooning over time. When you add the time, effort & resources required to deliver these sessions, providers start noticing a huge dent in profit & growth.
In our primary research, one benefits provider shared with us that they attended over 150 on-site benefits fairs for their stakeholders last year and attended another 108 webinars. Minimizing costs on such endeavors was their number one priority.
So, how can benefits providers tackle this issue? An innovative solution called “Virtual Benefit Fairs” is taking a flight to address these problems.
What is a Virtual Benefits Fair?
Virtual Benefits Fairs are branded online events that providers use to streamline their customer education. They run the entire year and act as a centralized educational center.
This online platform enables providers to invite employees to an online space where they can learn about various programs using videos, presentations & pre-recorded webinars. Moreover, benefits providers can advertise “live days” where their representatives can be available online to take questions from employees through chat tools & live webinars.
Let’s take a look at the 4 reasons why providers prefer a Virtual Benefits Fair:
1. Cost Reduction & Convenience
A Virtual Benefits Fair reduces the need for providers to regularly commute to conduct training. They can invite customers to one online platform where their representatives can be available from the office to provide support via chat and live webinars. This translates to relaxed schedules and lower travel expenses.
Of course, employers will still insist on-site training throughout the year but with a Virtual Benefits Fair in the equation, providers can work with employers to reduce the number of physical sessions and aim at a hybrid model where the virtual component takes some of the workload off.
2. Great User Experience for Customers
It’s not just the providers that benefit from the platform; customers prefer them too. With online benefits fairs, employees also don’t have to commute to a physical venue or spend an entire day in on-site training. The online nature of the platform, allows them to access the information they need and ask questions from the comfort of their home/office and from any device.
Moreover, online benefits software is usually very easy to use. Depending on the vendor, they can provide visually intuitive experiences that require very low learning curves and easy navigation. Virtual event platforms now use cutting-edge technology to allow attendees to access these online events with nothing but a browser.
These online events help deliver “on-demand” education which means attendees have more control of their learning experience and can focus on information that concerns them. Rather than following a fixed schedule of a training clinic that may or may not be relevant to them, attendees can save time by choosing the videos they wish to watch, the collateral they want to save and the representatives they want to connect with.
3. Ability to Accommodate Multiple Clients in one go
The process of delivering the same benefits training & material to multiple clients (and their employees) is extremely redundant. Virtual Benefits Fairs aims to address that by enabling you to cater to all your clients at one time and in one space.
There are several features that help with reducing needless repetition. For example, providers can upload all the relevant material to the virtual platform once and then invite employees from various companies on the same platform to educate them simultaneously.
Moreover, online Benefits Fairs typically have a group chat room facility that helps representatives to answer frequently asked questions for all logged-in users to see.
Similarly, training can be packaged as pre-recorded webinars and uploaded to a video repository for customers to consume all year round. This reduces the overall effort spent in training and makes already prepared content more reusable.
4. Measurable Engagement & Results
With a congested travel schedule and constant stream of training to deliver, providers are so focused on execution, that a strategic analysis of their content and delivery methods take a backseat in priority. Moreover, it’s just hard to measure how engaging sales material and training are in a physical setting.
With a Virtual Benefits Fairs, on the other hand, providers can measure performance through detailed user behavior reports. These are used to reveal attendance trends, content items that were downloaded the most, satisfaction surveys and audience engagement during each webinar/chat session. These metrics allow businesses to re-assess their sales material & training curriculum and improve them over time.
Furthermore, these engagement metrics can also be shared with clients themselves to prove the value delivered to their employees.
Concluding Thoughts
As costs and competition continue to soar in the benefits industry, we can expect an increasing preference for online customer education. Virtual event platforms inevitably will become an essential part of the training strategy for benefits providers.
Furthermore, this reliance on online benefits fairs will continue to rise as platform providers enhance their offerings to include features like integrations with LMS systems, advanced reporting & artificial intelligence. It’s time for providers to plan ahead and start looking at virtual event vendors that can cater to their specific needs.
ABOUT vFAIRS
At vFairs.com, we strive to build a top-class online event platform that will help event organizers make memorable connections with their target audience. We’re obsessed with taking out the hassle normally associated with physical events and leaving organizers and exhibitors to focus on what’s most important: engagement with the audience.
Get in touch with an expert to learn more about vFairs here.
