Summer provides a great opportunity to think about our business strategically. Here are a few ideas to help.

The employee benefits market is evolving. Winning organizations focus on easy-to-use services and positive user experience more than ever before. Why? Product innovation is important, but it's easy for customers to become confused by differences in products that represent differentiators. It's a lot easier for customers to recognize intuitive systems and packaging than it is to analyze product nuances. The easiest product parameter to determine continues to be price, so customers are increasingly interested in great service at an acceptable price point. We need to consider the service that customers never even notice is the best kind of service.

How are services evolving? The hot topic these days is the use of language-based artificial intelligence packages like ChatGPT. It's important to be aware of how AI can be used to augment our services. But it is also important to be aware that, "intelligent" as they seem, these services are, in essence, computer programs. The famous principle "garbage in garbage out" is truer than ever. If we are going to use AI to augment our services, we need to be sure we define its role and carefully set parameters for its use. In service, people count, big time! The humans applying AI make it deliver positive results, just like any technology.