Make communication a part of your strategy

As the competitive landscape for benefits brokers gets tougher, effectively communicating benefits strategies with clients—and helping them better communicate those strategies with their employees— becomes even more critical. The ultimate goal of communicating benefits strategies is to increase employee retention—and a broker’s business is on the line if communication is weak, says Elizabeth Halkos, chief marketing officer of Purchasing Power, an Atlanta firm that offers employee purchasing programs through payroll deductions.

“If communication to employees is not strong, there is a potential for brokers to get feedback from their clients that their benefits are not as effective as the broker pitched them [to be],” Halkos says. “But the reality is that it could have to do less with the products themselves and more about whether they are being communicated in the right way.