kompetenzen krankenkassen-benchmark

Customer of Health Insurance Companies on the Web

How customer-oriented are the operations of Swiss health insurance companies in the digital world? The present benchmark identifies the biggest gaps in the industry, it shows where health insurance companies are close to or far from their customers.

Nowadays, customers and health insurance companies often contact each other in the digital world. Online customer focus has therefore become the key competitive factor. A health insurance company must also be able to communicate online that it understands the customer and takes his needs seriously. Being close to the customer in the digital world is not primarily about space or time, but about emotions. The more the customer feels cared for and understood online, the stronger grows his trust and loyalty to the company.

The benchmark takes an outside perspective and evaluates the extent to which health insurance companies create digital experience environments in which the customer feels that his needs are being noticed. The aim is to identify the development potential of the entire industry and the potential for individual companies to set themselves apart.
For this purpose, an interdisciplinary review team from Unic analysed the online offerings of the 11 largest Swiss health insurance companies in terms of their customer focus.

The study is based on the assumption that digital customer focus can be viewed in three dimensions: customer experience, interactivity and customer portal. The more emotional the customer experience developed by the health insurance company, the more helpful the interactive services it offers and the more transparent the company’s business processes made by means of a customer portal, the closer it is to the customer.

Customer experience

The state of development of the websites examined is very heterogeneous in terms of visual design, content design and navigation design. Only some of the health insurance funds have visibly invested in the design of an emotional customer experience in the digital world.

There is a lot of catching up to be done in half of the health insurance companies under scrutiny. The company’s product vision is prevalent, an emotional approach to the customer is missing both in texts and images. Terminal independence is still an issue for many health insurance companies and it needs to be addressed.

Interactive Services

On their websites, many health insurance companies provide in-depth, specific, sometimes multimedially edited information regarding health, some of it is addressed to specific target groups such as children, seniors or pregnant women. Self-assessments or specific health tools, which support the customer on a continuous basis, are used with hesitation.

Health insurance companies also want to take more and more processes into their own hands and independently compare and evaluate offers. This is what most health insurance companies have recognised and made an intuitive calculation of premiums in the digital world.

Customer portals

The development of customer portals is very different: some health insurance companies have a very basic portal where the customer can manage and alter his personal master data, and which offers an overview of the current contracts. A few health insurance companies have integrated a messaging centre into their portals, which facilitates transparent and documented communication with the customer.

Set yourself apart by providing added value for your customer

Differentiation potentials can be unlocked in particular by offering value-added services to the customer. In this respect, the industry is still relatively underdeveloped. Especially services related to information and prevention could foster customer loyalty. The general trend towards a “quantified self” could serve as a basis for identifying valuable achievements.

Nowadays, customers demand experience, emotion and a high level of service across all contact points. Swiss health insurance companies must accept this challenge now.

Our offering:

  • Analysis of online and mobile offers by Swiss and German insurers regarding their customer focus
  • Identification of the development potential of the entire industry
  • Positioning instrument
  • The basis for the reflection and further development of digital services
  • Identification of possible differentiation potentials